1000 SONGS - DAY 29 - SONG # 49

Day 29 - a song from one of your favourite albums

One of the "albums" in my collection of vinyls that I always held to be among my favourite ones is a recording of Franz Schubert's "Great Symphony in C-major", D 944 - that has also been counted as the 7th, and the 9th, and due to the latest version of the Deutschverzeichns from 1978 nowadays should be counted as Schubert's symphony # 8 - by Otto Klemperer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. My favourite "song" is the 4th movement, allegro vivace, to me still among the most beautiful pieces of music ever written by a so called "classical" composer. It is, as the whole symphony, simply GREAT. Here it is, as rendered by Claudio Abbado conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe

There is another clip of that movement on UTUBE, by the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by Frans Brüggen, but it is played way too fast (which ruins the feeling of it, in a way). Then, there is that UTUBE-user who has uploaded the whole of the symphony as played by the Wiener Philharmoniker coducted by Franz Welser-Möst, also a rather fast version, but played with much more sensitivity than the Dutch orchestra does. Unfortunately, he has packed the 3rd & 4th movement into three clips, entitled "scherzoso with trio" and the first part (approx. 1 minute) of the 4th movement into part 2. So here is the 4th movement without the introdcution:

But you better listen to the whole symphony (strongly recommended). Follow this link to a digitally remastered recording of Bruno Walter conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in 1938:

http://www.pristineaudiodirect.com/LargeWorks/Orchestral/PASC014.php

In a way, this is also a post about two of the greatest conductors of the 20th century that had to leave Nazi-Germany for being jewish.