Praised by Bruno Walter as ’a noble and lovely work’, Braunfels’s opera “Die Vögel” is a radiantly beautiful synthesis of Wagner, Humperdinck and Richard Strauss. In his Memoirs Bruno Walter further commented: ‘In 1920 I directed one of the most interesting new works to appear while I was working in Munich, W. Braunfels’s “The Birds”: anyone who has heard Karl Erb’s (Hoffegut’s) song of human longing and the consoling voice of Maria Ivogün’s Nightingale, anyone who has been amused by the grotesque scenes in the work and moved by its romantic elements, will think back in gratitude to this inspired and intelligent operatic metamorphosis of Aristophanes’ comedy.’ ’Entartete Musik’ or ’degenerate music’ consists of works by composers suppressed or displaced during the political troubles of the 1930s-40s.