Rienzi hymns, processions and the musical clash of arms". Cosima Wagner recorded Wagner's comment in her diary for 20 June 1871: "Rienzi" is very repugnant to me, but they should at least recognize the fire in it; I was a music director and I wrote a grand opera; the fact that it was this same music director who gave them some hard nuts to crack – that's what should astonish them. Thus the work has remained outside today's Wagner canon, and was only performed at the Bayreuth Festival in 2013, staged by Matthias von Stegmann. Although the composer disclaimed it, it
Edward German copies. German was by then in great demand to write music for plays. His commissions included Henry Arthur Jones's "The Tempter" in 1893, Johnston Forbes-Robertson's "Romeo and Juliet" at the Lyceum in 1895, Herbert Beerbohm Tree's productions of "As You Like It" (1896) and "Much Ado about Nothing" (1898), and Anthony Hope's "English Nell" (later known as "Nell Gwynn") in 1900, starring Marie Tempest. At the same time, German was writing music for the concert hall, sometimes adapting music from his theatrical scores. His "Gypsy Suite" met with success similar to that of his overture to "Richard III" and his