No. VII of the Summer Season
Relayed from the Pavilion, Bournemouth
THE BOURNEMOUTH MUNICIPAL AUGMENTED ORCHESTRA
Conducted by Sir DAN GODFREY
MOZART'S Symphony belongs to one of the times when things really were conspiring to be kind to him. As listeners know, his life was often beset by difficulties and trials, although the music he left is almost all so melodious and wholesome that for generations it has had a large share in the world's happiness and bravo good spirits. The production of his opera Figaro in Prague was one of the great successes of his career, and at the time Mozart was the hero of the day. The Symphony, composed soon after, has traces not only of the happiness with which Mozart conceived it, but even of Figaro itself. We can hardly be astonished, when we remember how Mozart wrote at that time to a friend, telling him that "nothing is being played or sung or whistled in Prague but Figaro". The Symphony is in only three movements, there being no Minuet. It is scored for a comparatively small team, flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets, drums, and the usual strings, there being no clarinets. It begins with a full-sized slow introduction, and the bright quick movement which follows is worked out at important length and on strictly orthodox lines. The slow movement which follows is also fairly long, a fine example of Mozart's gift of inventing beautiful melody, and the Symphony comes to its end with a quick movement in the gayest possible spirits.