The BBC Midland Orchestra
Leader, Alfred Cave
Conducted by Leslie Heward
Schubert's Symphony No. 9, in C, was written a few months before he died in 1828, and rehearsed in his lifetime but laid aside as too difficult. It was then taken off the shelf ten years later by Schumann, and first performed under Mendelssohn at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipzig in 1839. Finally, it was brought to London and laughed out of the rehearsal room in 1844, and did not receive its first performance until 1856 at the Crystal Palace.
The C major Symphony used to be known as No. 7, but in 1936 the BBC decided to renumber it as No. 9, as it was written after No. 8, the ' Unfinished '.