On Christmas morning 1870, Richard Wagner’s new wife, Cosima, awakened to quite the surprise: 15 musicians on the staircase outside of her bedroom performing a new piece Richard had written for her birthday. In this instrumental pastorale Wagner lovers will hear many favorite horn calls and bird songs from the composer’s Ring-Cycle opera, Siegfried. Richard Strauss’ Le bourgeois gentilhomme Suite – a stark departure from the composer’s traditionally High Romantic work – is a Neoclassical gem with lively material compiled from his incidental music for a play about a nouveau riche man hoping his riches will elevate him to the status of gentleman.