Bernard Ross (baritone)
The Wireless Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Percy Pitt
Orchestra
Overture, 'Die Feen' ('The Fairies')
As a youngster, Wagner was naturally strongly influenced by Weber, whose romantic operas were then being hailed by Germany, and particularly young Germany, with a whole-hearted enthusiasm. His first opera, though not actually his first attempt, is very much on the lines of the Weber stories, with a strong supernatural element. He was just twenty and in his first theatrical post, chorus master in the Opera at Würzburg. His duties left him ample spare time, and he wrote both text and music of this three-act opera, finishing it within the year 1833. It was never performed until after his death, Munich giving it as an act of piety in 1888. The story is a well-known one, though Wagner altered it somewhat. A fairy loses her heart to a mortal; she is allowed to become a mortal herself, to wed him, only on condition that he shall not turn from her, however repulsive may be the shape into which she is transformed. In most versions of the story, she becomes a snake, but Wagner makes it a stone, which is restored to life and beauty, by the passionate song of the lover. Nor does she go with him into the everyday world; by the grace of the fairy king, her lover is admitted, along with her, to Fairyland.
Only the Overture is now heard. There are traces of Weber's influence in the soaring melody which comes from the fairy's song in the second Act of the opera, but the later Wagner is foreshadowed, too. One of the themes, for instance, is almost the same as a phrase in Elizabeth's Greeting to the Hall of Song in Tannhäuser. And already Wagner has clearly mastered the art of working his music up to an impressive climax.
Bernard Ross and Orchestra
O Star of Eve ('Tannhäuser')
Orchestra
Albumblatt (Album Leaf)
Prelude and Finale ('Tristan and Isolda')
Bernard Ross and Orchestra
Wotan's Farewell and Fire Music ('The Valkyrie')
Orchestra
Festival March