Originally posted by Roehre
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25.10.85: First performance (in Meiningen) of Brahms 4 under von Bulow. Stanford is very interested, but is not present. Joachim keeps him well informed about that and later Berlin performances. Stanford tells Joachim that Richter has promised to programme it in London ‘in the summer’.
10.5.86: First British performance, at St James’s Hall, cond. Hans Richter. Stanford attends, and it is difficult to believe he isn’t shown the score by his friend Richter. Stanford begins the ‘Irish’ immediately, completing the first movement on 5 June.
mid-Feb. 87:There have been delays, but Stanford tells Richter he hopes to “have the symphony ready for you” soon, but insists that it be programmed as late as possible, to give him time to finish it.
April 87: Third and fourth movements finished.
27.6.87: First performance, at St James’s Hall, cond. Hans Richter.
Stanford was very sensitive about the similarity between a phrase in the third movement and one in the slow movement of the Brahms. He always insisted they were arrived at independently and that the ‘Irish’ one was taken from ‘The lament of the sons of Usnach’ in Petrie’s collection of folk tunes. He had a note to that effect put in the score. He also said that the two composers were working simultaneously - something that was palpably not true - as well as independently. Given the history and Stanford’s excitement over the Brahms symphony, it’s as difficult to accept this as it is to accept that RVW’s Sixth has nothing to do with WW2.
Apart from the Concertgebouw connexion, Mahler conducted it in New York in 1910. George Bernard Shaw’s view of the symphony was that it is “a record of fearful conflict between the aboriginal Celt and the Professor”.
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