Recording
Title: BBC Legends: Boult
Performers: BBC Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Adrian Boult
Year: 1969
Length: 54 minutes
Review
Firsat two things: sorry about the tiny image, and the numbering of Schubert's Symphonies is very dodgy indeed, so it is possible to find this symphony with all kinds of numbers. The epithet of "Great" is constant however, and that is due not only to its length but first and foremost to the grandiosity of it all.
This is one of those symphonies which are effective in that most childish part of each of us which likes pomp, and excitement in their music, with its brass and percussion very prominent throughout and particularly in the grand finale.
That being said this is not a symphony solely made out of bombast, in fact it is its nuances that make it so good, the way that it goes down to more emotive subjects before jumping into powerful epicness and then returning to the softer parts. It is so contrasting at times that you keep fiddling with your sound volume, to listen to the quiet better and then not to wake up the neighbours. I hate neighbours.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
There continues to be some controversy over the numbering of this symphony, with German-speaking scholars sometimes numbering it as symphony No. 7, the most recent version of the Deutsch catalog (the standard catalogue of Schubert's works, compiled by Otto Erich Deutsch) listing it as No. 8, and English-speaking scholars often listing it as No. 9. Many American orchestras have dropped the numbering altogether since the mid-1980s and in printed programs merely title it the "Great" C-major Symphony.
The Finale part 1:
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