BOURNEMOUTH
A CONCERT by the MUNICIPAL ORCHESTRA
Directed by Sir DAN GODFREY
DAVID EVANS (Baritone)
WAGNER PROGRAMME
ORCHESTRA
Festival March from Tannhauser ' Overture to ' The Mastersingers ’
Forest Murmurs (from ‘ Siegfried ')
T HE well-known March from Tann
hӓuser is that to which the.knights and ladies of the Wartburg Castle assemble for the contest of song.
The Mastersingers Overture, that strong favourite among operatic preludes, admirably sets the scene for the Opera, with its burghers' solemn stateliness, its charming foretaste of the love-music, and its hint of the sportive apprentices, who make fun of their serious music-making masters.
Forest Murmurs gives us not only a lovely picture of the busy life of Nature in the woodland, but an emotional impression of the thoughts of the young Siegfried. He muses on his mother, who died when he was born, and listens to the songs of the birds, of which he can now understand the meaning.
DAVID EVANS
Recit. and Air, O Star of Eve' (from Tannhauser')
ORCHESTRA
Siegfried Idyll
Siegfried's Journey to the Rhine (from The
Dusk of the Gods
THE Siegfried Idyll, as most hearers know, is not an extract from one of Wagner's
Operas, but one of his separate works, composed as a birthday present to his wife, after tho birth of her son Siegfried (who was named after the hero of the Ring cycle of dramas). The music contains several tunes from the Ring, and one which is an old German cradle song.
IN the last music drama of the Ring, entitled
The Dusk of the Gods, Siegfried has won his bride, Briinnhilde, and sets out to seek the company of warriors at a castle beside the Rhine. The ‘ journey ’ music, played while the curtain is down, pictures for us his joyous, leaping stride and then the broad, strongly-flowing river.
ORCHESTRA
Prelude and Love Death (from Tristan and Isolde )
Ride of the Valkyries (from The Valkyrie )