Relayed from the National Museum of Wales

National Orchestra of Wales
(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)

There are several of the world's great treasures of art so well known and so universally beloved that no one ever has to speak of them by their full names. This Symphony is usually called affectionately 'the great C major,' and no one has any doubt that it is Schubert's which is in question. Although called No. 7, while the 'Unfinished' is No. 8, it is supposed that this was really a later work. It certainly presents the great Master of song at the very height of his powers, and is in every way a noble piece of music.
It is possibly open to the objection that it is full of repetitions of the same things, and it was probably left pretty much as it came from Schubert's thought, without the drastic revision to which slower and more painstaking composers often subject their work after it has been set down. But it is so full of splendid tunes, so rich in all that makes music best worth while, that few would really wish to have it curtailed.

(to 14.00)