(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)
The 'Siegfried Idyll' was written first for private performance, as a present to Wagner's wife. It belongs to the period when Siegfried, the third of the four big music dramas of the Ring, was almost completed. Wagner and his wife were living at Triebschen, near Lucerne, and there, in 1869, their son Siegfried was bom. It was that auspicious event which inspired this Idyll. Its composition and the rehearsals were kept a secret from Frau Wagner, and performed as a surprise to her outside the villa. Wagner himself conducted, and the faithful Hans Richter took the trumpet part. Scored for a comparatively small orchestra, the little piece is based on themes which are with one exception taken from the music-drama of Siegfried. The one exception is an old German Cradle Song which Wagner introduced with the happiest effect.
5.0 Mr. J. Maddox Yorke, Rural Community Councils: II: Corporate Life in the Villages
Village life is famous in fiction for storms in tea-cups and outrageous slander lying under peaceful exteriors and amidst idyllic surroundings. It is one of the triumphs of the Rural Community Councils' movement that corporate life in villages is being renewed.
