Symphony

A concert hall, where symphonies are played. Template:CC-photo

A symphony is a large-scale musical composition for an orchestra. Since the late eighteenth century, composers have regarded the symphony as “the central form of orchestral composition”, similar to how writers of fiction regard the novel, and filmmakers the feature film. According to music historian Michael Kennedy, the symphony “is reserved by composers for their most weighty and profound orchestral thoughts, but of course there are many light-hearted, witty, and entertaining symphonies.” In the present day the symphony is the musical form performed more than any other in concert programs by orchestras in the United States and Europe.

Beginnings

Baroque period 1600 - ca. 1750

In the seventeenth century, a sinfonia was, most generally, a short instrumental piece that served as an introduction to a larger work, such as an overture to an opera or a cantata. But the term also referred to instrumental works that stood alone, such as a concerto grosso (e.g., Allesandro Stradella’s sinfonie a più istrumenti). Moreover, ‘sinfonia’ and ‘concerto’ and ‘trio sonata’ were often used as synonyms. A sinfonia, in its form as overture, was most often structured in three movements: fast-slow-fast (e.g., the Italian opera sinfonias by Alessandro Scarlatti).

During the eighteenth century, the sinfonie as ‘symphony’ — an independent, multi-movement musical piece for concert performance in which one instrument doesn’t dominate, such as in a concerto — developed in various parts of Europe concurrently, such as in Italy, as evidenced by works by Giovanni Battista Sammartini; Vienna, notably by Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Georg Matthias Monn; North Germany, where there was a group of early symphonists including C.P.E. Bach; and in Mannheim (Germany), where early symphonies were written by Johann Stamitz and F. X. Richter, among others. At this time the symphony was a structure still under development, and repeated experimentation was expanding the complexity of this relatively new musical form. Symphonies composed in the eighteenth century up to 1770 are referred to as “preclassic”, and their composers as “preclassical symphonists”.

Why did the symphony grow in prominence? In the Baroque period secular music for the first time became more prominent than sacred music. New musical forms such as the sinfonia-as-proto-symphony registered this change wherein the concert hall, rather than the church, became the premier venue for which to compose music. The first collections of concert symphonies (still referred to as ‘sinfonias’) were published in various places of Europe, such as London, between 1740 and 1750.

Growth of the new musical form was also linked to the expansion of the concept of the orchestra itself. The court orchestras during the Baroque period expanded in size to comprise up to twenty players representing different musical families, particularly strings, woodwinds, and keyboard instruments. Whereas in 1700 most orchestras were private and supported by royalty, by the end of the eighteenth century orchestras for public concerts had become more and more common, and symphonies were written to fulfil the demand for orchestral concert music.

Most preclassical symphonies were composed in three movements. Although some composers, such as Monn, had been experimenting with the four movement symphony as early as 1740, four movement symphonies didn’t became the norm until around 1770, the birth of the "mature classic symphony".

The classical symphony

Mature classic symphony 1770s

The symphony continued to grow in importance, complexity and scale during the eighteenth century. In the second half of the eighteenth century Franz Joseph Haydn wrote 107 symphonies, many of which experimented with the form (some have six movements, for example); and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote 41 symphonies (the first was written when he was eight years old).

Haydn was the transitional point from the preclassical symphony to what is referred to as the mature classic symphony. The fourteen symphonies Haydn composed between 1757 and 1761 exemplify many characteristics of the preclassical symphony, while in some ways are already looking forward to the mature classic symphony, which Haydn arrived at between the years 1771 – 1774 (with his symphonies 42 - 56). Mozart arrived at the mature classic symphony during the years 1773 – 1774 (inc. symphonies 25 and 29). Haydn and Mozart are considered the most celebrated composers of the classical symphony.

The strict terminology “symphony” arrived well after Haydn and Mozart had begun their symphonic labors; as late as 1766 symphonies could be advertised to the public (in London and in Holland, for example) not as symphonies but as “overtures”. By 1770, however, a program for a concert given by Mozart in Mantua uses the word “symphony”. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the term “symphony” will become firmly established, so that, for example, by 1805 Beethoven will identify his Third Symphony on the title page as “Sinfonie”.

Flowering at the time of the “Age of Reason”, the classical symphony was marked by overall balance and intricate design in which structural symmetry was a general characteristic of a movement. The overall structure of a symphony by 1770 was typically in four movements and conformed to this layout: (1) fast, (2) slow, (3) moderately fast, (4) quite fast. The eighteenth century orchestra performing a classical symphony needed no conductor, as the musicians were guided by the concertmaster (usually the first violinist) and the continuo player. The classical symphony was also, compared to symphonies of subsequent centuries, "short and sweet": virtually all of Haydn’s symphonies each take no longer than 25 minutes to play, and Mozart’s, 30 minutes.

Beethoven

Beethoven's symphonies 1800-1823

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, and in the process single-handedly expanded the structure of the symphonic form. Whereas Beethoven’s first two symphonies reflect closely the established style of the mature classic symphony, his Third Symphony, the Eroica (1804), was groundbreaking in terms of running time, complexity of orchestration, and – in the words of one music scholar contemporary with Beethoven – its “colossal ideas”. Range and density of sound, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, thematic development: in Beethoven’s symphonies from the Eroica onward, all are experimented with, in the process advancing the scope and expression of the concept of the symphony. His Ninth Symphony (1823) was yet grander still: it was not only the longest symphony (in terms of running time) written up to then (it takes over an hour to perform), but it also featured the inclusion of human voices in the fourth movement. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony occupies a privileged position in the history of the symphony, equivalent in stature to Citizen Kane in film, and the Mona Lisa in painting: it is a one-of-a-kind phenomenon.

In fact, Beethoven’s achievement in the symphony transcends the category of the symphony. The four-note motif that begins Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, three quick G’s and a long E-flat, is perhaps the most famous musical phrase in classical music history. The Ninth Symphony occupies an honored position not only in the history of the symphony but in the history of classical music itself. In recent years the Ninth Symphony has been played in world capitals to mark events of great signficance. For example, the newly reunified city of Berlin celebrated the Fall of the Berlin Wall with a performance of the Ninth Symphony six weeks later on Christmas Day 1989 in the Schauspielhaus; and the BBC Proms revised its programme of 15 September 2001 ("The Last Night of the Proms") to include the choral finale from the Ninth Symphony to mark the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

Beethoven’s symphonies were marked by what is generally referred to as “personal expression”, and acted as the passageway from the intellectual mature classic symphony to the emotional, lyrical, dramatic symphonies of the Romantic Period of the nineteenth century.

The romantic symphony

The nineteeth century

After Beethoven, the symphony, in the hands of some composers, remained less a formal exercise and more a subjective expression of the composer’s inner experience. Two branches led from the pioneering work of Beethoven: symphonies written within (1) the genre of the mature classic symphony; and (2) the genre of the expansive and expressive symphony. This latter branch would characterize the main direction of the twentieth century symphony.

As for the first branch, some prominent landmarks include: (A) Franz Schubert composed nine symphonies between the years 1813 - 1825, and particularly his first six recall the Haydn and Mozart of the classic symphony. His Eighth Symphony (Unfinished, 1822), however, is a major development in the history of the nineteenth century symphony, in terms of its innovations in scoring and its basis in lyric (i.e., emotional) experience. (B) Felix Mendelssohn composed five symphonies between the years 1824 - 1832, which are closer in style to Mozart and the classic symphony than Beethoven and the romantic symphony. (C) Robert Schumann composed four symphonies between the years 1841 - 1853, and while they are marked by some noteworthy experimentation, generally his symphonies reflect the style and structure of the classic symphony.

As for the second branch, the expressive symphony: (A) Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (subtitled “Episode in the Life of an artist”) (1830) is an example of a “program symphony”, in which the musical piece has a thematic structure expressed by the composer (e.g., Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral). The symphony “tells a story” rather than communicates abstract musical ideas. Charles Gounoud remarked (aptly describing the ultimate history of the symphony), “With Berlioz all impressions, all sensations, whether joyful or sad, are expressed in extremes, at the point of delirium.” (B) Franz Liszt’s Faust Symphony (1854) and Dante Symphony (1856) are also program symphonies recalling more the expressive content of Beethoven than the consistent formal structure of the classic symphony. (C) Johannes Brahms composed four symphonies between 1876 - 1885 and has been hailed as the greatest composer of symphonies in the nineteenth century. His symphonies wed the compositional complexity of the classic symphony with the highly expressive emotional scope of the romantic symphony.

Other high points of the nineteenth century expressive symphony include Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, who composed six symphonies between 1866 - 1893; Anton Bruckner, who composed ten symphonies between 1866 - 1894 which especially recall Beethoven in their grandiose structures; and Antonin Dvořák, who composed nine symphonies between 1865 - 1893 which reflect the influence of Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. Richard Strauss wrote five symphonies between 1880 - 1915, categorized by music scholars as one of the last breaths of the romantic symphony; his last was Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony) (1915), a program symphony (a musical account of one day and night in the mountains) scored for a massive orchestra and that takes about 50 minutes to perform.

In the expressive symphony pioneered by Beethoven, the dynamic range of the various moods is more dramatically pronounced than in the classic symphony: the joy is more boisterous, the lyrical more tender, the alarm more strident, the melancholy more depressive. The most prominent twentieth century symphonies would continue in this "dramatic" vein.

The twentieth century symphony

Some major composers of the twentieth century such as Claude Debussy, Alban Berg and Béla Bartók never wrote a single symphony. But there were many composers, in Europe and Russia as well as in Great Britain and America, who kept the idea of the symphony alive. Some of the most prominent composers who can be described as following in the tradition and spirit of the European symphony include:

Gustav Mahler (Austria), nine symphonies, 1884 - 1909

Jean Sibelius (Finland), seven symphonies, 1898 - 1924

Charles Ives (America), four symphones, 1902 - 1916

Igor Stravinsky (Russia), three symphonies, 1907 - 1945

Ralph Vaughan Williams (England), nine symphonies, 1909 - 1957

Sergey Prokofiev (Russia), seven symphonies, 1917 - 1952

Dmitry Shostakovich (Russia), fifteen symphonies, 1925 - 1971

Alfred Schnittke (Russia), eight symphonies, 1972 - 1994

A full list of twentieth century composers of symphonies would consist of hundreds of names; and yet no new symphony since Beethoven has awed the world the way Beethoven’s Ninth has, though almost two hundred years has now passed since it was written.

In the twentieth century (and beyond), the overall structure of the symphony remained as flexible as it had ever been. Symphonies, while generally are structured in four movements, can, in fact, be structured according to the wishes of the composer. For example, Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony is in five movements; Mahler’s Eighth is in two movements; Shostakovich’s Fourteenth is in eleven movements; and Schnittke’s Fourth is structured as one movement. Symphonies can start or end fast or slow, and can consist, if the composer wishes, of all fast movements or all slow movements. While the average performance time of a classical symphony was around 20 to 25 minutes, the average for a nineteenth and twentieth century symphony can be fixed at around 35 to 40 minutes, with many symphonies (including all of Mahler's and many of Shostakovich’s) taking over 50 minutes to perform. (Taking a contemporary symphony completely at random, Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 3 from 1992 has a performance time of around 42 minutes.) Some twentieth century symphonies hark back to the "program symphony" (e.g., Vaughan Williams's Sinfonia Antarctica), others recall the manner of Haydn (Stravinsky's Symphony in C), yet others are more "internal" than ever before, representative of the disjointed, moment-by-moment shifting states of mind of the composer. Shostakovich at the end of the third movement of his Symphony No. 10 goes so far as to encode his initials as the melody (in German terminology: D, S, C, H [D, E-flat, C, B]). The slow movement of a symphony (for example, the adagio) achieved new depths of gloom and mournfulness in the twentieth century, such as in Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 and Schnittke’s Symphony No. 8.

Just as music scholar Gerald Abraham refers to a [European] symphonic “line” from Schubert to Mahler , so Alexander Ivashkin, world renowned cellist and music scholar, has written: “With Schnittke’s music we are possibly standing at the end of the great symphonic route from Mahler to Shostakovich.”

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