As requested by dialsforstupid, here's a rendition of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll with the Pokémon RSE soundfont.
The Siegfried Idyll holds the distinction of being one of the only works Wagner wrote that wasn’t a theater piece of some kind. It might also be one of the greatest birthday presents ever conceived; its premiere was a private occasion for Wagner’s wife, who was reportedly woken up on her birthday a chamber orchestra playing it downstairs.
It was only after some persuasion that Wagner conceded to publish what was originally going to be a purely private piece, but we can only be grateful that he did.
In this hefty and purely orchestral work, one can sense the kind of symphonies a mature Wagner could have composed if he hadn’t written off symphonies as a supposedly obsolete genre.
As an added point of interest, this work was composed while Wagner was still writing his decades-long Ring Cycle. Therefore, it incorporates a few leitmotifs from it and, conversely, Wagner would go on to use this work’s opening theme in the final duet of his Siegfried opera.
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