S2.E63. Some nostalgia with Vaughan Williams and Schubert, book-ended with Haydn Sunrise and a mystery symphonic finale.

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Welcome back to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson and his fresh approach to the world of classical music. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, old or young. Perfect Pitch has something for everyone.

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Christmas looms ever closer, but we'll save Christmas music for next week's episode. And I might make it a little bit longer, as I still want to pack in some old favorites with some new and less frequently heard pieces as well. I thought we might start today with some late Haydn by way of a sort of settler. You'll remember that he acquired the nickname Papa Haydn for being the pioneer of both the symphony and trinkortet. Towards the end of his life, six of his finest string quartets were published, and I can't approve of these words, which were written to him in praise by Charles Burney. They are, he wrote, full of invention, fire, good taste, and new effect. And seen the production not of a sublime genius who has written so much and so well already, but of one of highly cultivated talent who has expended none of its fire before. The fourth is called the Sunrise, and it's well named for its steadily rising motif. And the first movement captures so much of the description I just read. So we'll ease in today's episode with this evocative, delightfully grounding scene setter, played by the Takash Quartet. If you've not heard that before, I think you'll get what I mean if you give it another go. But where would you go after that? Well, I was wondering much to say myself, when out of the blue I was led to the appropriately named song Whither Must I Wander. One of Vaughan Williams's songs of travel. It's a nostalgic acknowledgement that we can enjoy the happy memories of the past, even if we obviously can't bring them back. But they can leave their mark as well. What a fabulous melody this is, and Bryn Toffell brings his usual sensitive understanding of the words. Malcolm Martineux is on the piano.

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And my rules is in the twice. The two word of world must fold her in the top. Swamp for swamp build a privacy for mine. Long stands the house and the chimney stone is called letters stand now the friends are all deep. Come again, calling out the fowl. Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers. Soft flow the stream through easy and flowing house. Where the day shines as it shone on my childhood. Where shine the day on the house with life and twitch time much more?

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Before we conclude with something which I'm fairly sure will be new to many of you, I want to go back to the Schubert sonata we listened to quite recently. Then it was the penultimate movement of the penultimate sonata. But now we're going to stay in the world of nostalgia for a few more minutes by listening to the Andantino, the second movement. If this is the first time you've heard it, brace yourself for something completely out of Schubert's character. We're in familiar territory for the first three or so minutes. But then there's really no other way of putting it. For the next three minutes. As you can imagine, musicologists have written many thousands of words to suggest what all it's about. You'll know by now that I do not fall into that category. But I've heard enough of Tubert's music today that in the early months of his life, there's something blatantly biographical about this passage. It's deranged, definite, out of control, and brutal. Because there are still these one-off chords called standards, which are loud outbursts with low duration, coupled with triplets at the top end of the keyboard, which almost sound like stifled tears. You might reasonably wonder after those talks why we should be listening to this. But it's one of those passages in music which almost demands our attention. And we do well at this time of year to reflect with music like this, that it's far from falling games for very many people. We're going to finish with a finale of a symphony written towards the close of the 19th century. But I'm not going to tell you who it's by until after you've listened to it. Take a bow if you can guess a nationality, and if you should guess a composer, well, you can come back for several curtain calls. I've never heard it live myself, which is not that surprising, as it's pretty well fallen out of the symphonic repertoire. Here are just a few of the comments which greeted its first performance. I have no idea what that means, and I'm not entirely sure I want to. Another music critic wrote that it was arid and drab music without grace or charm, and ridiculed the principal four-bar theme at hardly above the level of those given to students. Well, actually, I rather like it, and the way it features in its final movements developed by lots of other instruments. Yet another found the music gloomy and pompous, little to say. Before dropping out of the symphonic repertoire, it did find some popularity in Europe and the US. But it's a shame that it doesn't feature nowadays. Because I think, to use a well-known musical term, it's a banger. First off, I really don't know why that piece has been cast into oblivion. But the nationality, Jump? Australia. French? Norwegian. It's European. Take your bow if you said French. And if you've got the composer, come back for your curtain calls with Charles Ditois, who is conducting the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in the only symphony written by Cesar Franck. Thank you for listening today. I'll be back with some Christmas cheer next week. Please do rate the programme if you like it, and better still, write a comment. And then of course tell your friends. That's three requests. A bit greedy, maybe, but any one of them makes a difference. So thank you. Until next week.