Richard Wagner composed the Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present for his second wife, Cosima, after the birth of their son Siegfried in 1869. It was first performed on Christmas morning, 1870, by a small ensemble of the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, on the stairs of their villa at Tribschen, (today part of Lucerne), Switzerland. Cosima awoke to its opening melody. (Extract taken from Wikipedia).
It is performed in this video by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Lorin Maazel.
The photographs are of the German and Swiss Alps and have all been sourced online.
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