National Orchestra of Wales
(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)
Conducted by Warwick Braithwaite

This is a very youthful work of Wagner's, and in later life he very likely looked on it as a youthful indiscretion. He was only twenty, and had just been given his first post-chorus-master in one of the smaller German Opera Houses. Weber's operas were very much in the air, and, like other young people, Wagner was naturally a good deal influenced by their romantic ideas.
The plot is based on an old legend which can be found in one form or another in most parts of the world. It tells of a fairy who fell in love with a mortal, and who was given leave to become a mortal herself so that she might wed him, only on the stern condition that his love remained constant, even though she were turned into some repulsive shape. In most versions of the legend she becomes a snake, but Wagner altered it and made her become a stone, which her lover restored to life and beauty by his passionate love song. And, instead of making the fairy become a mortal, Wagner has her lover admitted to fairyland as her bridegroom, by special decree of the King of the Fairies.
The opera is now quite forgotten except for this Overture. It is bold and vigorous, and there is one upsoaring tune which is rather like Weber. It comes from the second act of the opera, where the fairy herself sings it. And there is another theme which is very like a part of Elizabeth's greeting to the Hall of Song in Tannhauser.

William Parsons (Baritone) and Orchestra

Massenet's opera Herodiade, though founded on the Biblical story of John the Baptist and Herod, takes considerable liberties with the original. When it was produced at Covent Garden in London, the authorities insisted on some changes in the names of the personages and in the setting. The story is even more grim in its tragedy than in the Bible version, but Massenet's music is, as always, melodious and effective. In this beautiful air, taken from the second act, Herod is singing of a vision of Salome which never leaves his thoughts by day nor by night.

A Nephew of the French marshal who lost his life at the battle of Leipzig, Prince Poniatowski found time, amid the affairs of State to which his station in the world called him. to become a thoroughly equipped musician. His was by no means the usual amateur's equipment. After the disaster to the French arms in the Franco-Prussian War he came with his Emperor to London and took an important place in its music, producing more than one of his big works in the London theatres. Most of his operas and other music on a big scale are already well-nigh forgotten, and he is remembered almost solely by this one breezy and wholesome song.