Last Concert of the Season Relayed from the Queen's Hall, London
(Sole Lessees, Messrs. Chappell and Co., Ltd.)
WALTER WIDDOP (Tenor)
THE B.B.C. SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
(Principal Violins, WYNN REEVES and S. KNEALE KELLEY)
Conducted by SIR HENRY J. WOOD
Part I WAGNER'S interest in the old story of the Flying Dutchman was first aroused by a . version of it by the poet Heine. Soon after he had read it, the impression it had made on him was deepened by an actual experience of the North Sea in one of its grim and grey moods.
In July, 1839, Wagner, with his wife (his first wife) and his huge Newfoundland dog. embarked at Pillau on a sailing vessel bound for London en route for Paris. He writes himself: 'I shall never forget the voyage: it lasted three weeks and a half. The legend of the Flying Dutchman was confirmed by the sailors, and the circumstances gave it a definite and characteristic colour in my mind.' The Overture is eloquent of stormy seas, of the restless wanderings of the Dutchman, condemned for over to sail the waters until a maiden should be found who would break the spell by sharing his fate. The stern motive of ' Fate ' is heard, and the beautiful melody which portrays Senta, the Norwegian fisher-maiden who finally redeems the Dutchman by her self-sacrifice. Mime the Craftsman
Nothung ! Nothung ! conquering sword !
A T the beginning of Siegfried, tho hero is still under the guardianship of Mime the Nibelung, although he has already grown to sturdy and fearless manhood. Ho makes this very plain when he comes laughingly into their hut with a bear which he has caught in the woods, and with which he terrifies the dwarf in boyish glee. Mime has the two pieces of the broken sword of Siegmund, the boy's father, and has sought again and again to weld them, only to have the weapon broken by the boy's strong hands. Wotan, in the guise of a wandering old man, has visited the dwarf, and told him that only one who knows no fear can make a new weapon of the broken pieces. Mime learns, by adroit questioning, that nothing has ever taught Siegfried what it is to be afraid, and accordingly he sets him to work to weld the broken sword. The boy files it down and melts it, blowing up the forge to a white heat, and then with mighty hammer blows forges a new weapon with which he splits the anvil in two. The songs with which he accompanies that terrific energy are eloquent of youthful exuberance and fearless strength, and even apart, from the scene, can quite well present the picture of it. IT was Wagner himself who arranged the Prelude to his music-drama Tristan and Isolda, along with the last great scene which Isolda sings beside the dead body of Tristan before she, too, falls lifeless. More than any of Wagner's music it is able to tell its own story of passionate love and grief. Of the closing scene he said himself: 'It !s the ecstasy of dying, of the surrender of being, of the final redemption into that wondrous realm from which we wander farthest when we strive to take it by force. Shall we call this Death ? Is it not rather the wonder world of night, out of which, so says the story, the ivy and the vine sprang forth in close embrace over the tombs of Tristan and Isolda,'

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