(From Birmingham)
THE BIRMINGHAM STUDIO AUGMENTED
ORCHESTRA
Conducted by JOSEPH LEWIS
Overture, ' Rienzi '
ROBERT MAITLAND (Baritone) and Orchestra
Wotan's Farewell and the Fire Music (' The
Valkyrie ')
ORCHESTRA
Siegfried Idyll
MAY BLYTH (Soprano) and Orchestra
Elizabeth's Greeting
('Tannhauser')
ORCHESTRA
Introduction, Act III,
' Lohengrin '
THE stirring Prelude to the third Act of ' Lohengrin ' is among the very best known of all the extracts from Wagner's works. It begins with an impetuous rushing theme given out with the whole strength of the orchestra. There follows an emphatic tune, beginning with the same furious upward rush, which the trombones play, and then there is a quieter section, foreshadowing the bridal duet in the last act of the opera. But the rushing theme returns once more, with all its brilliant suggestion of pomp and shining armour.
ROBERT MAITLAND and Orchestra
0 Star of Eve (' Tannhauser')
WAGNER was fond of introducing real personages from history into his operas, and several of the characters in Tannhauser actually belonged to the age which the Opera describes. Wolfram von Eschenbach, who appears as one of the Minstrel Knights, was a distinguished poet of those far-off days ; some have thought him the most important figure in the literature of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. He counted himself a soldier rather than a poet, and there is no doubt that with spear and sword he did noble service on behalf of the Landgrave Hermann , his Feudal chief in the Opera, as in real life he actually was.
This beautiful song is taken from the third
Act of the Opera. Elizabeth has been praying for the errant Tannhauser at a wayside shrine, and ha's sadly and gently declined Wolfram's offer to escort her home to the castle. He sings this song, as he watches her climb the heights, with the evening star rising in the sky above the Wartburg.
ORCHESTRA
Bridal Procession (' Lohengrin ')
MAY BLYTH and Orchestra
Senta's Ballad (' The Flying Dutchman')
ORCHESTRA
March, ' Tannhauser ?