 In the summer of 1850 he actually began to compose music for the prologue of "Siegfried's Tod" ("Siegfried's Death", as "Götterdämmerung" was originally called) before he had even conceived of the "Ring" cycle itself.This effort, however, was premature and Wagner abandoned the work near the beginning of the second scene, in which Siegfried takes his leave of Brünnhilde.The following summer Wagner made another abortive attempt to compose music for his gradually emerging operatic cycle.