“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 close:—
“Now May again
Breaks winter’s chain,
The buds and bloom are springing;
No snow is seen,
The vales are green,
The woodland choirs are singing!