- Chadwick composed this symphony over the course of 1883-5.1
- The Boston SO premiered just the Scherzo from this symphony in March of 1884 (the whole work wasn’t finished yet). The audience liked it so much they demanded that it be repeated, immediately, and the orchestra actually did repeat it then and there (the first time the Boston SO had ever done so for any piece of music).2
- The Boston SO premiered the whole symphony on December 10, 1886, in a performance conducted by the composer.3
- Listen for: the Scherzo of this work features a pentatonic melody reminiscent of African-American spirituals. It predates, by nine years, the similar style in the Largo of Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony.4
Sources
- Steven Ledbetter and Victor Fell Yellin, “Chadwick, George Whitefield,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed July 29, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000005356.
- Ibid.
- “Symphony No. 2, Op. 21 (Chadwick, George Whitefield),” IMSLP, accessed July 29, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.2%2C_Op.21_(Chadwick%2C_George_Whitefield).
- Ledbetter and Yellin, “Chadwick, George Whitefield,” Grove Music Online.
Cut IDs
13335