"I am really anxious to make the 'Walpurgis Night' into a
symphony-cantata, for which it was originally intended, but did not
become so from want of courage on my part."

On the 11th of December of the same year he writes her:--

"My 'Walpurgis Night' is to appear once more in the second part, in a
somewhat different garb indeed from the former one, which was somewhat
too richly endowed with trombones, and rather poor in the vocal parts;
but to effect this I have been obliged to re-write the whole score from
A to Z, and to add two new arias, not to mention the rest of the
clipping and cutting. If I don't like it now, I solemnly vow to give it
up for the rest of my life."

The cantata was first publicly performed in Leipsic, Feb. 2, 1843, at a
concert, in which it occupied the second part of the programme. It had to
stand a severe test of comparison, for the first part was very brilliant,
including a Haydn symphony, a Mozart aria, Beethoven's "Choral Fantasie,"
the piano part played by Madame Schumann, the overture from "Euryanthe,"
and the chorus from Weber's "Lyre and Sword;" but it made a success, and
was received with great enthusiasm.

The subject of the cantata is a very simple one. The witches of the
Northern mythology were supposed to hold their revels on the summit of
the Brocken on the eve of the 1st of May (Walpurgis Night), and the
details of their wild and infernal "Sabbath" are familiar to every reader
of "Faust." In his separate poem Goethe seeks to go back to the origin of
the first Walpurgis Night. May-day eve was consecrated to Saint
Walpurgis, who converted the Saxons from Druidism to Christianity, and on
that night the evil spirits were said to be abroad. Goethe conceived the
idea that the Druids on that night betook themselves to the mountains to
celebrate their rites without interference from the Christians,
accomplishing their purpose by disguising their sentinels as demons, who,
when the Christians approached, ran through the woods with torches,
clashed their arms, uttered hideous noises, and thus frightened them
away, leaving the Druids free to finish their sacrifices.

The cantata begins with an overture in two movements, an _allegro con
fuoco_ and an _allegro vivace_, which describes in vivid tone-colors the
passing of the season from winter to spring. The first number is a tenor
solo and chorus of Druids, which are full of spring feeling, rising to
religious fervor in the