RICHARD WAGNER: PRELUDE TO ACT 1 OF PARSIFAL.

Richard Wagner worked intermittently on his famous opera Parsifal, from its first conception in 1857 to its final draft in 1877. The opera is loosely based on a famous thirteenth century poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach, about Parzival, a Knight of King Arthur's Round Table. But there are also elements from Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the story of the Holy Grail. Wagner's Parsifal consists of three acts, and this is the Prelude to the first act.





I find the music simply overwhelming. Of course, you may need a few listens, as did I when I discovered this jewel. Naturally, the tunes must have lingered in my head for about twenty-five years, since there's a whiff of the Prelude in Boorman's movie Excalibur, more precisely when Arthur kneels at dusk between the menhirs and calls out for Merlin.

Anyway - breathtaking beauty. Like if your ears thought that you had died and gone to heaven. At least for me.



MFBB.