Colin Horsley (piano)
BBC Scottish Orchestra
(Leader, J. Mouland Begbie )
Conductor, Ian Whyte
Wagner's Symphony in C is a youthful assy in the style of the eighteenth century; written when he was nineteen, it gives no indication of the great things that were eventually to follow. He seems to have retained an amused affection for it, however; for in 1882, when he was sixty-nine, the parts were unearthed and it was given a private performance in Venice in the Teatro La Fenice on Christmas Day (the birthday of his wife Cosima), Wagner conducting the first two movements and Humperdinck the remainder. Deryck Cooke