‘Paradise and the Peri’ was written in 1843 and was given its first performance at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, on December 4th of the same year with the composer conducting. England heard the work for the first time June 23d, 1856, with Mme. Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt singing the part of the Peri and Sterndale Bennett conducting. Schumann found his text in the second poem of Thomas Moore’s ‘Lalla Rookh,’ which he followed very closely. This deals with the beautiful Hindoo legend of the fallen Peri, banished from paradise, who is promised readmission if she succeeds in finding the gift ‘most dear to Heaven.’ She brings in succession the last drop of blood shed by a hero fighting for his country’s liberty, the last sigh of a devoted maiden who sacrificed herself to die by the side of her plague-stricken lover, and the tear of a repentant sinner--which last precious gift alone can move the crystal bar that closes the gate of light. These three quests for the coveted gift constitute the three parts into which the work is divided. The music has many touches of oriental color, but it breathes throughout the warm romantic sentiment, in melody and harmony, which was an inseparable part of Schumann’s individual style. The work discloses some fine choral-writing, but the composer of _Frauenliebe und-Leben_ and _Dichterliebe_ is conspicuously apparent in many an exquisite song, the peers of anything Schumann has written. The persons represented are the Peri (soprano), the angel (alto), the King of Gazna (bass), the youth (tenor), the maiden (soprano), and the horseman (baritone); the part of the narrator is distributed among various voices. There are choruses of Hindoos, angels, houris, and genii of the Nile. An expressive orchestral introduction is followed by the narrator (alto), who describes the forlorn Peri at the gate of heaven. The Peri sings a beautiful melody (‘How blest seem to me, banished child of air!’), full of tender longing; the angel tells her how she may again be admitted (‘One hope is thine’) and the Peri departs on her quest, singing ‘I know the wealth hidden in every urn.’ The narrator here introduces a quartet (‘Oh, beauteous land’), which is immediately followed by a full chorus (‘But crimson now her rivers ran’). A stirring march-like movement foretells the approach of the tyrant of Gazna; choruses of Hindoos and the conquerors shout defiance at each other; the narrator (tenor) tells of the solitary youth left fighting for his native land; the tyrant and the youth face each other and utter short defiant phrases; the youth shoots his last arrow, it misses its mark and he is slain; and an eight-part chorus cries out in agonized tones, ‘Woe! for false flew the shaft.’ The Peri saw the deed and flew to catch the last drop of blood shed for liberty by the youthful hero. The part closes with a chorus (‘For blood must be holy’), vigorous, broad, exultant, in which the Peri finally joins.