Conducted by Leslie Heward
The Siegfried Idyll, one of the loveliest things Wagner ever wrote, was not originally intended for the world in general, it was Wagner's personal gift to his second wife, and it was only later that he decided to publish it and permit its public performance. For several years Wagner had been living in retirement at Tribschen with Cosima, the divorced wife of Von Biilow , and in 1869 she bore him a son, whom they named Siegfried. Next year he married her and on her birthday gave her this delightful surprise, the Siegfried Idyll, played by a small orchestra on the stairs outside her bedroom door.