Amazing pieces of classical music - 11

Benjamin Britten's Spring Symphony (Op. 44) was first performed in 1960 with the Royal Opera House Orchestra & Choir (Convent Garden) conducted by the British composer. Curiously enough, just as with Walton's Symphony No. 1, the piece was actually performed even more convincingly just a decade later by the London Symphony Orchestra & Choir conducted by André Previn. Britten selected poems for the symphony from various historical periods, creating a narrative flow through the four parts of it. Some of the poets whose works are featured include: Thomas Nashe: ("Spring, the sweet spring"), Edmund Spenser: ("The Merry Cuckoo"), George Peele: ("Fair and Fair"), W.H. Auden: ("Out on the Lawn I lie in Bed") and William Blake: ("Sound the Flute!"). Indeed, one hears not only the wondrous introduction (the winter thaw set to the anonymous poem "Shine Out") but also the playful "The Driving Boy". Britten himself said that this is "a symphony not just about spring itself, but also about the progression from winter to spring and the reawakening of the earth and the life it signifies." Completed in 1949, the symphony's theme of reawakening was also interpreted by some as symbolizing the emergence of Europe from the darkness of World War II. Today it still gives hope

Shine out, fair Sun, with all your heat,
Show all your thousand-coloured light!
Black Winter freezes [to] his seat;
The grey wolf howls, he does so bite;
Crookt Age on three knees creeps the street;
The boneless fish close quaking lies
And eats for cold his aching feet;
The stars in icicles arise:

Shine out, and make this winter night
Our beauty's Spring, our Prince of Light!

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JamieS · 46-50, F

As nice as the Rachmaninoff choir was in your other question, as little understanding I have for this piece that I personally see more of a cacophony of sounds rather than something soothing or appealing to me. Sorry for that.

val70 · 51-55

@JamieS That's alright. It's more of a patchwork, a throw stitched together. Each piece has a memory attached. I like the fourth movement called The Driving Boy the best. The source of inspiration for that were poems by George Peele and John Clare.

But if you don't like it because of everything that I told you, well, there's still Gloriana. It flopped at its premiere for political reasons because it was the English Boris Godunov at moment of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, but happily, it has a single but really great recording

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