And now to get caught back up a couple of Romantic British Isles composers... damn, with some more forethought I could have made this British week or something at this rate. Anyways, the first one is Charles Villiers Stanford, another Irish composer. This second symphony makes me want to listen to more Stanford, but probably not this one again.
This symphony is an example of one that has a lot of things I like about it, but it just doesn't work for me. The dramatic arc of the piece just doesn't feel right to me. Which is a kind of subjective an hard to pin down thing, but I'll point out some things I noticed in each movement.
The orchestration is pretty solid, but nothing really grabbed me throughout the first movement. There was a climax before the recap of that was very striking with its use of dramatic pauses, but it felt somewhat out of place. Despite the second movement being pretty active and having a lot of qualities I like, it just leaves me cold. Maybe the melodies are not strong enough to keep me engaged.
The third movement opens with what must be a nerve-wracking horn solo, but the real nice moment here is the very end which ends with a sudden shift to a brass chorale. Although I am biased towards scherzos, I would call this the strongest movement again. The final movement has the same issues as the first, the themes are kind of weak and the structure just doesn't have the memorable moments needed to carry a piece of this scope.
But that's all fine because the next entry is on something great.
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