In an article published six months before the opera's premiere, Windt acknowledged that he had known the story of Andromache for many years.
In front of Pyrrhus’s palace, the chorus of captured Trojan women lament their lost homeland and their captivity.
Her hate and that of the Trojan women grows more intense as she recounts that Pyrrhus smashed Skamander’s skull against the walls of Troy.
But Orest reveals he came for a very different purpose: To force Hermione’s marriage to Pyrrhus and to kill Skamander as was demanded by Greek politics.
Insulted, Hermione approaches Orest (who is also leaving the palace with his entourage), begging him to fulfil his mission by killing Andromache, Skamander, and Pyrrhus.
"[7] Although the opera received mixed and negative reviews, a number of critics recognized Windt's talent.
Fritz Ohrmann, writing in Signale für die musikalische Welt, praised the quality of the performance which he felt was primarily due to Erich Kleiber's musical direction.
His first musical drama has undeniable, major weaknesses, but these cannot conceal the fact that behind him stands a full-blooded dramatist.
But one who is only a promise whose creative powers - I believe - are far from being released because Windt was under the greatest psychological pressure for too long...Windt is the type of late-maturing composer, still internally unfree, who struggles with determination and maximum emotional commitment to realize his far-reaching artistic ideal.
Above all, however, they lack the great breath to be able to swing out into a broad melody...This is how I explain the feverish restlessness of this music, which repeatedly pushes towards passionate outbursts, repeatedly towards new ecstasies and therefore too often lacks wise economy in the application of strong musical expressive powers... in the large ensembles and the effective choirs he demonstrates an extraordinary contrapuntal skill.
He is thoroughly versed in the secrets of the diverse modern rhythms and handles the rich color palette of the orchestra with superior confidence.
"[9] The unnamed critic in Der Auftakt wrote: "Unfortunately, the musician Windt only succeeds in very rare moments in capturing our attention through his score … What he writes is typical of the old music of excitement, without any structure, without formal consolidation, an exalted gesticulating music that differs from Strauss's Elektra only in its lack of substance and the exhaustion of the means that were revolutionary at the time.
This genre, that in its striving for monumental expression knows no boundaries and whose musical gestures go from one extreme to the other, expires without achieving an objective form and structure, and is completely outside our time...Only in some parts of the [opera]...in the more thoughtful arias and into the choral songs... do we feel that a personality that has something to say in his own form of expression, [and in those moment we recognize] that we are dealing with one serious musician with dramatic and lyrical talent.
[11] Writing as the Berlin correspondent for the New York Times conservative music critic Herbert F. Peyser gave a very negative view of the opera.
"One can scarcely imagine a work for the lyric theatre more dismally barren of either popular appeal or artistic reward.
A two-and-one-half-hour yelling match carried on against an unmerciful racket of heavy orchestral artillery, darkened stage...From one end of the evening to the other the piece is as static as it is dour.
'"[12] Avoiding too radical a modernist style, Windt's music for Andromache showed enough color and power that he was selected to score his first feature-length film, Morgenrot.