"When one listens to this work in its entirety - that is, the ring without words - one gets the impression that a small window has opened through which one can see the ring as a whole..." (Lorin Maazel)

Richard Wagner's grandson Wieland saw in the orchestra the universal subconscious that binds Wagner's figures together. The text behind the text, the "ultimate source". Lorin Maazel took up these views when he was commissioned in 1965 to resume the Ring cycle in the repertoire of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 1987 Telarc Maazel, an orchestral distillate, asked to compile a symphonic synthesis of the ring.

The result is freely flowing and chronological, beginning with the first note of the Rheingold and ending with the last chord of the Götterdämmerung. Each note was written by Wagner himself, no connecting passages were added and nothing was re-composed. The ring without words transports the magic of Wagner's monumental musical dramas in 75 minutes and without interruption.