As early as 1840, in his novella "A Pilgrimage to Beethoven", Wagner had anticipated a form of lyric drama in which the standard operatic divisions would disappear. In early 1851 he published his book-length essay Opera and Drama, in which he expounded his emerging ideas around the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk – "total work of art". In the new kind of musical drama, he wrote, the traditional operatic norms of chorus, arias and vocal numbers would have no part. The vocal line would, in Gutman's words, "interpret the text emotionally through artificially calculated juxtapositions of rhythm, accent, pitch and key relationships". The orchestra, as well as providing the instrumental colour appropriate to each stage situation, would use a system of leitmotifs, each representing musically a person, an idea or a situation. Wagner termed these "motifs of reminiscence and presentiment", which carry intense emotional experience through music rather than words. According to Jacobs, they should "permeate the entire tissue of the music drama". The Rheingold score is structured around many such motifs; analysts have used different principles in determining the total number. Holman counts 42, while Roger Scruton, in his 2017 philosophical analysis of the Ring, numbers them at 53.
