ORCHESTRA
Transformation Music and Closing Scene from
Act I ' Parsifal ' NEAR the end of the first act of Parsifal the old Knight Gumemanz leads Parsifal to the holy Mount Montsalvat, and this music is played while they seem to walk, by means of changing scenery on the stage, from the forest, through a gateway in the rocks, then downwards until they reach the great hall into which the Knights of the Grail pass in a. solemn procession. The themes on which the music is built up are, first, the bells of the Grail Temple, the Dresden Amen, our Saviour's agony, and the Sacrament.
IN the second scene of the great music drama which bears his name, the young Siegfried has left the dwarf Mime, with whom his boyhood had been spent. He has forged anew the broken sword of his dead father, Siegmund, the sword with which he slays the dragon and makes himself master of the magic helm and the ring fashioned of the Rhinegold, round which the whole story centres. In the scene to which this music belongs, he lies on his back under the forest trees, listening to the many voices of the wild. Prominent among these are heard the songs of the bird, the bird whose message he learned to understand through the magic of the dragon's blood when he had slain it. AT the end of the Rhinegold, the first of the four music-dramas which make up the Nibelung's Ring, Valhalla, the home of the gods, has been built by the help of the stolen gold. It is hidden from view by a thick mist which Dormer cleaves with his mighty hammer. Then we see the great bridge, like a rainbow, stretching across the valley to the noble castle, and across it the gods pass in solemn procession to their new home.

Forest Murmurs, ' Siegfried ') - Wagner
Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla, ' The Rhinegotd' - Wagner