Here, briefly, is the history of Schubert's last and finest symphony. Written a few months before he died, in 1828 ; rehearsed in his lifetime but laid aside as too difficult; taken off the shelf by Schumann ten years later; first performed under Mendelssohn at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipzig, 1839 ; brought to London and laughed out-of the rehearsal room in 1844, it was first heard in England at the Crystal Palace in 1856. It is Schubert's longest and gayest symphony, an ordered riot of high spirits. It rushes along with the speed and abandon of a stream in flood, and, breaking its banks in the finale, throws itself into the sea at last with frenzied exhilaration. As a symphony it scarcely needs to be analysed; it can best be felt, and the listener who rides the rapid melodious flood for the first time is never likely to forget the experience nor rest till he has ridden it again.