Richter's activities away from Vienna during the 1890s were, at the beginning of the decade, largely confined to the familiar areas of London and Bayreuth, together with the festivals at Birmingham and on the Lower Rhine. As the new century approached, and with it his growing unease at working with his new director Mahler, Richter spread his wings and made guest appearances elsewhere in Europe. His schedule for 1889 in London began with the regular spring series of Richter Concerts, which programmed much of the familiar repertoire with which these concerts were now associated. It was becoming his practice to repeat his programmes in London and Vienna, though his championing of works by Austrian and British composers was left to performances in their respective capitals. After negative critical reaction in Vienna to the music of Cowen and Stanford and in London to new works by Fuchs and Grädener, it was Brahms and Bruckner who provided the novelties for London. Unfortunately it was a one-way traffic for Richter could take nothing of similar musical worth back to Vienna; his association with Elgar began too late to benefit the Austrian capital.

Richter's London season in 1889 began in May with five concerts of regular fare. What followed in June was, however, something new. A friend for many years was the painter and amateur composer Professor Hubert Herkomer who lived at Bushey in Hertfordshire. There, in the garden of his house Dyreham, he built himself a small theatre with the help of local workmen and students from his school of painting. In December 1888, after successfully staging his fragment The Sorceress that summer, he wrote to the conductor with a proposal, suggested to him at table by his twelve-year-old daughter: