Leader, Harold Fairhurst
Conductor, Richard Austin
Solo .violoncello, Feuermann from the Pavilion, Bournemouth (Soloist, FEUERMANN>)
C. P. E. Bach was the second son of Sebastian Bach. Born at Weimar in 1714, he was educated at the Leipzig Thomasschule and the University of Frankfort-on-Oder. From his early days he displayed extraordinary musical gifts and ultimately became one of the formost players of the organ and clavier. Furthermore, he was a prolific composer and was considered one of the advanced modernists of his day. Actually, he did much to lay the foundations of the new forms of sonata and symphony, which were later perfected by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. He died at Hamburg in 1788. Symphony No. 2, in C minor
Scriabin
I Andante. 2 Allegro. 3 Andante. 4 Tempestoso. 5 Finale: Maestoso
Scriabin's Second Symphony was written when the composer had just come under the influence of Wagner's music and ideas, and of Nietzsche's philosophy of the Superman. It is not surprising, therefore, that the texture is distinctly Wagnerian and that the music seems to have an underlying programme. The ' slow introduction' of the classical symphony is here enlarged to a whole, self-contained (though quite short) movement. At a first hearing, the most attractive part is the third movement, with its bird-calls and its echoes of Wagner's 'forest murmurs'.