Conductor, B. Walton O'Donnell
March (The Queen of Sheba) Gounod Saint-Saens wrote two symphonic poems based on episodes from the life of Hercules-' Hercules's Youth ' and ' Omphale's Spinning-Wheel '. The former describes the choice which was put before the hero in his adolescent days ; on the one hand idleness and soft pleasures, on the other struggles and trials of endurance, at the end of which there shone through the flames of a funeral pyre the reward of immortality. Hercules scorned the offer of dalliance, choosing the harder way ; even without the aid of words Saint-Saens's music leaves us in no doubt of his destiny.