Schubert: Symphonies, Vol. 2 – Nos. 2 & 6 & Italian Overtures
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
This recording is perhaps more valuable for the two overtures, both written around the same time as the Sixth Symphony, than for the symphonies themselves. Not that Edward Gardner and the CBSO...
Schubert: Symphonies, Vol. 2 – Nos. 2 & 6 & Italian Overtures
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Purchase product
This recording is perhaps more valuable for the two overtures, both written around the same time as the Sixth Symphony, than for the symphonies themselves. Not that Edward Gardner and the CBSO...
About
For the second volume in his Birmingham Schubert symphony cycle, Edward Gardner turns to the second and sixth symphonies. Composed between December 1814 and March 1815, the Second Symphony is not only a response by Schubert to the works of Beethoven, and especially the Prometheus Overture, but also strives to push the conventional symphonic boundaries, most notably in the extended exposition of the first movement. Completed in February 1818, the Sixth Symphony was the first to be titled Große Sinfonie (grand symphony) by Schubert, a mark of his growing confidence in his work in the symphonic idiom. The two overtures were composed at the same time as the sixth symphony, and are clearly modelled on the overtures of Rossini, whose music was all the rage in Vienna at that time.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
May 2020
This recording is perhaps more valuable for the two overtures, both written around the same time as the Sixth Symphony, than for the symphonies themselves. Not that Edward Gardner and the CBSO are unsuccessful in the larger works, but the less familiar shorter pieces are particularly well done
May 2020
These are fresh, up-tempo performances of the young Schubert’s most cheerfully prolix symphonies, nimbly executed and finely recorded in the warm acoustic of Birmingham Town Hall. In Gardner’s hands the music darts and skips with youthful abandon, oblivious of any responsibilities to the future.
