Richter told Mrs Joshua that between production rehearsals and his performances of the Ring cycle at Bayreuth in 1906, he went to Lenk in Switzerland to attempt a sulphur cure for ‘this devlish rheumatic-neuralgia which plagues me in the winter with an unwelcome visit’. He then travelled to Zermatt to enjoy the air at high altitude before returning to Bayreuth. Richardis and Mitzi then joined the Richters at Weibegg. In thanking her for some pictures of religious themes which she had sent him, Richter revealed that he had put them in a ‘Christian corner of the Weibegg chalet where such things which he had received from friends are placed’. They were there

Richter's 1906–07 season began with the forty-second Birmingham Triennial Festival, opening on 2 October with the traditional Elijah. The day before, Herbert Thompson was allowed to attend a rehearsal of orchestral items included amongst the programmes and was impressed by ‘his quiet mastery of the situation’ and by the detailed way in which he rehearsed even the most familiar Wagner overtures. As to Elijah, ‘he put real warmth and force into [it] and gave us a fine interpretation, neither too polite and cold on the one hand nor yet tricked out with a sensationalism quite false to the ideals and character of Mendelssohn. Dr Richter certainly had both chorus and orchestra in the hollow of his hand today.’ Later that evening Thompson noted that in Elgar's interpretation of his own The Apostles ‘his tempi were nearly always quicker than he formerly employed, much quicker than he adopted at the first performance three years ago and it's rather curious that the time he took last evening approximates closely to Richter's.’ The next morning Elgar picked up his baton again to conduct the first performance of The Kingdom, with Richter conducting a Bach motet and Brahms’ First Symphony after the interval.