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SERENADE JAMBOR I PROMESSI SPOSI Ponchielli Here, in this gloomy, solitary dwelling, In this asylum of peace; peace I have sought in vain. Emotions thrilling, combat within this bosom. O sweet days of youthtime! Joyful and yet tormenting recollections, In vain I struggle to forget ye! How sweetly dawned on me life’s early morning, While with emotions tender every pulse was thrilling! Now my sole comfort bitter tears afford me, Tears born of grief, in lonely silence and darkness, Soon a reluctant victim, I at yonder altar kneeling, Must bid farewell to earthly joys. Yet through one swiftly stealing the flame of love Makes every vein with ardent impulse glow. Alas! I’m fettered by a chain that ever unto him binds me, Hard is the yoke, yet his command ever obedient finds me, Oh! haste thee, O death, and bear away this weary weight' of me. THE FIRST WALPURGIS NIGHT Mendelssohn HE First Walpurgis Night, Ballad for Chorus and Orchestra, the words by I Goethe, the music by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy”—such is the translation of the title of this fine composition. The night between the 30th of April and the Ist of May is in Germany called the Walpurgis Night, being dedicated to Walpurga, or Werburga (to whom is dedicated a church at Chester), a British Saint, sister of St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany. In the populär tradition it is supposed to be the night for great festivals of devils and witches on the mountains of the Harz. One such, on the Brocken or Blocksberg mountain, forms a part of Goethe’s “Faust.” The title of “First Walpurgis Night ”—Goethe’s own designation in the present case —doubtless expresses his intention to expose in this poem how the populär Super stition arose out of the use by the old heathen, as masquerade or strategem, of that which afterward remained as a fixed belief. The poem, as describing the first occurrence of the kind, would be rightly called “ The First Walpurgis Night.” OvErturE (Portraying the change from Winter weather to Spring.) No. 1. Tenor Solo (A Druid) and Chorus of Druids and People. Now May again Breaks Winter’s chain, The bud and bloom are springing; No snow is seen, The vales are green, The woodland choirs are singing! Yon mountain-height Is wint’ry white; Upon it we will gather ;—• Begin the ancient, holy rite,— Praise our Almighty Father! In sacrifice The flame shall rise! Thus blend our hearts together. Away! away!
