I can't resist reposting this G. B. Shaw review of an Ocean Symphony performance:
20 December 1893
…Mention of the London Symphony Concerts reminds me that I said nothing at the time about the last one, at which Mr. Henschel revived Rubinstein’s Ramsgate Symphony, sometimes described as The Ocean.
In judging this work it should be borne in mind that Rubinstein is a Russian, and that in no country in Europe is it possible to keep so far away from the ocean as in Russia. Also that Rubinstein’s rating as a composer is not high. He is only oceanic in respect of not being fresh, and of being drenchingly copious. His songs, duets, and pianoforte pieces are sincerely sentimental and sometimes pretty, though they are all compiled from the works of greater composers; but an ocean symphony-no, thank you.
If I cannot have Wagner’s sea music, I can content myself with Mendelssohn’s Hebrides, or even Grieg’s scrap of storm music in Peer Gynt, or, if no better may be, with Strauss’ North Sea waltz played in the true Strauss manner. I only draw the line at Rubinstein’s attempt to stuff out the chords of C and G major with musical chaff to something like the bigness of the round pond in Kensington Gardens. It is no use: the thing, oceanically considered, is a failure. Leave the ocean out of the question, and you have a bustling and passable third-hand Schubert symphony. Mr Henschel mercifully cut two movements out of it; and when he proceeds to cut out the other four my enjoyment of the work will be complete. By way of putting Rubinstein entirely out of countenance, his work was prefaced by Weber’s Ocean, thou mighty monster, sung by Mrs. Eaton, a lady of formidable physical powers, which she used with due discetion and artistic feeling…
David
