Part II
SCHUBERT
THE B.B.C. SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Conducted by GRANVILLE BANTOCK
Symphony No. 5 in B Flat
Military March in C (' Reiter March ')
(Symphonic Orchestration by Liszt) rpHERE is a good deal of Schubert's music which he himself never heard performed, and we have it on the authority of Sir George Grove , who wrote tho programme notes for the Saturday concerts at the Crystal Palace, that when this Symphony was played there in 1873 -more than half a century after its composition-it was its first public performance. Composed, along with four earlier Symphonies, before Schubert had passed out of his 'teens, it is full of all the youthful exuberance of spirits that wo look for in his early work. There is no trace in it of the sadness which wo can hear in many of his later works; it is bubbling over with happiness throughout.
There are four movements in the traditional form, a bustling first movement with the conventional two principal themes, a finely melodious slow movement, a merry Minuet, and an energetic, joyous, quick movement at the end.