The odd one out round

[Gauk]

Well remembered - I had forgotten those. McEwen is a long-time favourite of mine, as well.

[Alkanator]

I don't think anyone mentioned Bantock's Hebridean Symphony for symphonies named after UK places.

[JollyRoger]

Edward German: Symphony No. 2 'Norwich'

[thalbergmad]

I don't know why, but I find that incredibly funny. Why would anyone compose a Symphony and call it Norwich??

I think I will compose a Symphony and call it "Tooting Bus Depot".

Thal

[Alan Howe]

Well, Norwich is culturally and historically a rather rich place. No worse than calling a symphony "Cambridge" or "Oxford", surely?

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Set your prejudices aside, Thal. As English cities go Norwich is actually rather fine. I frequently nip up the road to Norwich for chamber music concerts (and twice a year for a dental check up - and the dentist is amongst the violins of the Norwich Symphony Orchestra). Norwich in fact is a rather cultured place - and marked by a conspicuous absence of muck, graffiti, and unpleasant louts roaming the streets.

German's Symphony No. 2 in A minor quickly became known as the 'Norwich' since it was commissioned for the 1893 Norwich Festival, and conducted at the latter by the composer himself. True, we are not quite in Elgar territory but it is nonetheless a rather splendid work and I enjoy an occasional performance of it. Dig back in the records and you'll find the Norwich audience loved the work and were especially enthusiastic about it. When it was later performed in London G B Shaw ridiculed the work - but bah! why take note of Shaw?

I'm rather tickled by the idea of a Tooting Bec Bus Depot Symphony. I can't imagine it to have passages of heart rending soaring lyricism, and I guess its progress might be constantly punctuated by rasping outbursts of blaring brass. But alas I'm pretty sure those party-pooper moderators of ours would rigorously preclude all discussion of it.

[Mark Thomas]

Having been involved in the bus industry in a former life, I will have no truck with slighting references to bus depots, thank you! Nor Norwich for that matter: "a fine city" indeed, for that's what the city welcome signs used to say. Just to link the two, I am always amused by the strap-line adopted in the1970s by the Norwich-based bus company, Eastern Counties: "Eastern Counties - we serve you right"! Hmmm.

But back to music...

[Gauk]

Works named after places are more often so named because of commissions or performances. Smetana's symphonic poem "Prague" is about Prague, but Mozart's Prague Symphony is not, and neither is Kabelevsky's Prague Piano Concerto.