Rienzi friend Apel, who had likely first made the suggestion that Wagner compose "Rienzi", mentions a plan to perform the overture to "Rienzi" "a fortnight hence", but contains a clear indication that her husband had just been committed to a debtors' prison. The full score of "Rienzi" was completed on 19 November 1840. In 1841 Wagner moved to Meudon, just outside Paris, where the debt laws could be more easily evaded, whilst awaiting developments for "Rienzi", having already written to King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, requesting that he order a production of the work in Dresden. With the support of
Overture in D minor (Handel, arr. Elgar) first performance. Elgar's friend W. H. Reed wrote of Elgar's enthusiasm for Handel: '...he would speak of Handel with tears in his eyes... would rub his hands gleefully and look up to heaven at the thought of Handel's genius'. Elgar wrote to John E. West, music editor at Novello & Co., that he had known the overture since he was a little boy and always wanted it to be heard in a large form. Elgar's arrangement followed two orchestrations of works by another composer he admired: he transcribed J. S. Bach's "Fugue in C minor" in 1921 and the "Fantasia