Sometimes it’s interesting to see how well a good story bears up to closer inspection, something I was thinking when I heard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll on Classical Collection this morning.

Apparently his wife was awoken by the gentle sounds of an orchestra playing on the stairs, but while I don’t doubt that the music was played in the house on that morning there are aspects of the story that seem improbable. Apart from the absence of percussion and (I think) trombones, the piece is scored for a normal orchestra but perhaps it would be possible to get away with two dozen players. Would not the sound of 24 men arriving at the house, setting up their instruments, warming up and then tuning up been louder than the opening bars of the Idyll? I don’t know how large Wagner’s house was but I wonder how easy it would have been to get twenty-odd players on the stairs. The clarinets, for example, have to keep on changing between their B flat and A instruments, which must have been difficult, and the stairs would have had to be rather wide to accommodate music stands.

Has the concert ever been recreated on the same spot? I would like to believe in the story and I suppose that number of people could creep about but I still think the tuning up remains a problem.

COSIMA WAGNER (for it is she): "Richard, do you have to keep bringing your work home with you like this?  Isn't there anywhere at the theatre you boys could rehearse?  And look, they've trodden mud all up the staircase, oh Richard, honestly?!"  

Anyhow, whoever heard of orchestral players who just turned-up and did the job, without (i) complaining that it was very cramped and they couldn't see very well (ii) sitting entirely silent until the moment the baton is raised and then saying "I haven't got a music stand" (iii) playing the most difficult passages in the work fortissimo whilst everyone else is tuning up....

Someone did a reconstruction of the scene as part of a Monitor(?) telly programme some time in pre-history (Timothy West as von Bulow? Alan Badel, conceivably, as Wagner?). Can't remember who directed it now. Not Ken Russell IIRC and I don't think it was the Tony Palmer Wagnerthon. Much was made of the secretive rehearsals. Someone practising a horn solo in a rowing boat in the middle of a lake? Photogenic but not necessarily very secret, although I've a funny feeling it was in someone's diary (Hans Richter's?) as actually having happened. Does that film ring any bells with anyone?

I am very firmly of the view that Cosima should have been allowed to get up and have a pee first otherwise she couldn't possibly have enjoyed it properly (no, the Idyll not the piddle, don't be silly).

Oh yes!     I'd forgotten that. Meistersinger in that case wasn't it? 

there are two viola parts and, in the first performance, the 2nd viola part and the trumpet part were played by hans richter.

Hmm, Ian, I think Ray Winstone is a little to thick set for Bülow!

It is such a romantic story, I don't care whether or not Cossie heard the players arrive, needed a pee or a cup of tea, or any of that stuff.......it is a gorgeous present to have been given xxx I hope she appreciated it !

I'd like to think that the new mother was allowed at least some chance to get comfortable ahead of the treat, though sadly I don't think the composer would have been one for shouting "Are you cosy, Ma?.....Then we'll begin."