62, is a symphony scored for strings, piano and toy instruments, composed by Malcolm Arnold in 1957.
[1] The piece was first performed at a Savoy Hotel fund raising dinner in London on 28 November 1957 by a group of eminent composers, musicians and personalities: Denis Truscott (who was Lord Mayer of London in 1957), Thomas Armstrong, Edric Cundell, W Greenhouse Alt (Edinburgh organist, 1889–1969), Gerard Hoffnung, Eileen Joyce, Steuart Wilson, George Baker, David McBain (director, Royal Military School of Music), Leslie Woodgate, Eric Coates (just three weeks before his death) and Astra Desmond, with the Amici String Quartet and Joseph Cooper, piano.
Vivace Although Arnold's Toy Symphony is a modest piece in musical terms when compared to his nine numbered symphonies, as Vincent Budd has pointed out, "the 'big tune' is just as much a winner as the many memorable themes in many concert works".
[4] For years it was the only Arnold Symphony not to have received a professional, commercial recording until a performance by the Orchestra of the Swan conducted by Tom Hammond was issued in February 2020 by Orchard Classics.
[7] There are other toy symphonies by (for instance) Bernhard Romberg (first published 1852),[8] Carl Reinecke (1895),[9] Joseph Horovitz, whose Jubilee Toy Symphony was composed in 1977 for the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II and also first performed by a well-known group of musical personalities,[10] and (deploying custom musical toys as electronic controllers) Tod Machover (2002).