Mewton-Wood (piano)
London Symphony Orchestra
(Leader, George Stratton )
Conducted by Basil Cameron
Beethoven
Overture: Egmont
7.42 app. Piano Concerto No. 1, in C
8.20 app. Symphony No. 5, in C minor From the Royal Albert Hall , London Tickets may be obtained from the Royal Albert Hall or usual Agents
It is sometimes forgotten that Beethoven began his career as a pianist and gained a wide reputation as a brilliant virtuoso. His early concertos, therefore, though they reveal the influence of earlier masters and do not express his genius fully, are clearly the work of a musician who is thoroughly at home at the keyboard. The Concerto known as No. 1 (actually written in 1797, two years later than that known as No. 2) contains plenty of material to engage the mind and fancy, and as a whole gives the impression of a young musical giant at play.
Life is real, life is earnest in the Fifth
Symphony. ' So Fate knocks at the door,' said Beethoven of the famous opening notes, though they are believed to have been suggested to him by the singing of a yellow-hammer in the Prater at Vienna. But as soon as they are played (by the strings and clarinets) we are in the grip of a work in which Beethoven's inspiration never flags-through the inexorable statements of the opening Allegro, the tender lyricism of the Andante, the mystery and force of the Scherzo, and the triumph of the finale (in which trombones appear for the first time in a symphony).
Harold Rutland