Asymphony is an extendedmusical composition inWestern classical music, most often fororchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections ormovements, often four, with the first movement insonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of astring section (violin,viola,cello, anddouble bass),brass,woodwind, andpercussioninstruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in amusical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g.,Beethoven'sNinth Symphony, orMahler's Second Symphony).
The wordsymphony is derived from theGreek wordσυμφωνία (symphōnía), meaning "agreement or concord of sound", "concert of vocal or instrumental music", fromσύμφωνος (sýmphōnos), "harmonious".[1] The word referred to a variety of different concepts before ultimately settling on its current meaning designating a musical form.
In late Greek and medieval theory, the word was used forconsonance, as opposed toδιαφωνία (diaphōnía), which was the word for "dissonance".[2] In the Middle Ages and later, the Latin formsymphonia was used to describe various instruments, especially those capable of producing more than one sound simultaneously.[2]Isidore of Seville was the first to use the word symphonia as the name of a two-headed drum,[3] and fromc. 1155 to 1377 the French formsymphonie was the name of theorganistrum orhurdy-gurdy. In late medieval England,symphony was used in both of these senses, whereas by the 16th century it was equated with thedulcimer. In German,Symphonie was a generic term forspinets andvirginals from the late 16th century to the 18th century.[4]
In the sense of "sounding together", the word begins to appear in the titles of some works by 16th- and 17th-century composers includingGiovanni Gabrieli'sSacrae symphoniae, andSymphoniae sacrae, liber secundus, published in 1597 and 1615, respectively;Adriano Banchieri'sEclesiastiche sinfonie, dette canzoni in aria francese, per sonare, et cantare, Op. 16, published in 1607;Lodovico Grossi da Viadana'sSinfonie musicali, Op. 18, published in 1610; andHeinrich Schütz'sSymphoniae sacrae, Op. 6, andSymphoniarum sacrarum secunda pars, Op. 10, published in 1629 and 1647, respectively. Except for Viadana's collection, which contained purely instrumental and secular music, these were all collections of sacred vocal works, some with instrumental accompaniment.[5][6]
In the 17th century, for most of the Baroque era, the termssymphony andsinfonia were used for a range of different compositions, including instrumental pieces used inoperas,sonatas andconcertos—usually part of a larger work. Theoperasinfonia, orItalian overture had, by the 18th century, a standard structure of three contrasting movements: fast, slow, fast and dance-like. It is this form that is often considered as the direct forerunner of the orchestral symphony. The terms "overture", "symphony" and "sinfonia" were widely regarded as interchangeable for much of the 18th century.[6]
In the 17th century, pieces scored for large instrumental ensemble did not precisely designate which instruments were to play which parts, as is the practice from the 19th century to the current period. When composers from the 17th century wrote pieces, they expected that these works would be performed by whatever group of musicians were available. To give one example, whereas thebassline in a 19th-century work is scored forcellos,double basses and other specific instruments, in a 17th-century work, abasso continuo part for a sinfonia would not specify which instruments would play the part. A performance of the piece might be done with a basso continuo group as small as a single cello andharpsichord. However, if a bigger budget was available for a performance and a larger sound was required, a basso continuo group might include multiple chord-playing instruments (harpsichord,lute, etc.) and a range of bass instruments, including cello, double bass, bass viol or even aserpent, an early bass wind instrument.
LaRue, Bonds, Walsh, and Wilson write in the second edition ofThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that "the symphony was cultivated with extraordinary intensity" in the 18th century.[7] It played a role in many areas of public life, including church services,[8] but a particularly strong area of support for symphonic performances was the aristocracy. In Vienna, perhaps the most important location in Europe for the composition of symphonies, "literally hundreds of noble families supported musical establishments, generally dividing their time between Vienna and their ancestral estate [elsewhere in the Empire]".[9] Since the normal size of the orchestra at the time was quite small, many of these courtly establishments were capable of performing symphonies. The youngJoseph Haydn, taking up his first job as a music director in 1757 for theMorzin family, found that when the Morzin household was in Vienna, his own orchestra was only part of a lively and competitive musical scene, with multiple aristocrats sponsoring concerts with their own ensembles.[10]
LaRue, Bonds, Walsh, and Wilson's article traces the gradual expansion of the symphonic orchestra through the 18th century.[11] At first, symphonies were string symphonies, written in just four parts: first violin, second violin, viola, and bass (the bass line was taken by cello(s), double bass(es) playing the part an octave below, and perhaps also a bassoon). Occasionally the early symphonists even dispensed with the viola part, thus creating three-part symphonies. A basso continuo part including a bassoon together with aharpsichord or other chording instrument was also possible.[11]
The first additions to this simple ensemble were a pair of horns, occasionally a pair of oboes, and then both horns and oboes together. Over the century, other instruments were added to the classicalorchestra: flutes (sometimes replacing the oboes), separate parts for bassoons, clarinets, and trumpets and timpani. Works varied in their scoring concerning which of these additional instruments were to appear. The full-scale classical orchestra, deployed at the end of the century for the largest-scale symphonies, has the standard string ensemble mentioned above, pairs of winds (flutes,oboes,clarinets,bassoons), a pair of horns, and timpani. A keyboard continuo instrument (harpsichord orpiano) remained an option.
The "Italian" style of symphony, often used as overture andentr'acte inopera houses, became a standard three-movement form: a fast movement, a slow movement, and another fast movement. Over the course of the 18th century it became the custom to write four-movement symphonies,[12] along the lines described in the next paragraph. The three-movement symphony died out slowly; about half ofHaydn's first thirty symphonies are in three movements;[13] and for the youngMozart, the three-movement symphony was the norm, perhaps under the influence of his friendJohann Christian Bach.[14] An outstanding late example of the three-movement Classical symphony is Mozart'sPrague Symphony, from 1786.
The four-movement form that emerged from this evolution was as follows:[15][16]
Variations on this layout, like changing the order of the middle movements or adding a slow introduction to the first movement, were common. Haydn, Mozart and their contemporaries restricted their use of the four-movement form to orchestral or multi-instrument chamber music such as quartets, though since Beethoven solo sonatas are as often written in four as in three movements.[17]
At the beginning of the 19th century,Beethoven elevated the symphony from an everyday genre produced in large quantities to a supreme form in which composers strove to reach the highest potential of music in just a few works.[21] Beethoven began with two works directly emulating his models Mozart and Haydn, then seven more symphonies, starting with theThird Symphony ("Eroica") that expanded the scope and ambition of the genre. HisSymphony No. 5 is perhaps the most famous symphony ever written; its transition from the emotionally stormyC minor opening movement to a triumphant major-key finale provided a model adopted by later symphonists such asBrahms[22] andMahler.[citation needed] HisSymphony No. 6 is aprogrammatic work, featuring instrumental imitations of bird calls and a storm; and, unconventionally, a fifth movement (symphonies usually had at most four movements). HisSymphony No. 9 includes parts for vocal soloists and choir in the last movement, making it achoral symphony.[23]
Of thesymphonies bySchubert, two are core repertory items and are frequently performed. Of theEighth Symphony (1822), Schubert completed only the first two movements; this highly Romantic work is usually called by its nickname "The Unfinished". His last completed symphony, theNinth (1826) is a massive work in the Classical idiom.[24]
Of the early Romantics,Felix Mendelssohn (five symphonies, plusthirteen string symphonies) andRobert Schumann (four) continued to write symphonies in the classical mould, though using their own musical language. In contrast,Berlioz favored programmatic works, including his "dramatic symphony"Roméo et Juliette, the viola symphonyHarold en Italie and the highly originalSymphonie fantastique. The latter is also a programme work and has both a march and awaltz and five movements instead of the customary four. His fourth and last symphony, theGrande symphonie funèbre et triomphale (originally titledSymphonie militaire) was composed in 1840 for a 200-piecemarchingmilitary band, to be performed out of doors, and is an early example of a band symphony. Berlioz later added optional string parts and a choral finale.[25] In 1851,Richard Wagner declared that all of these post-Beethoven symphonies were no more than an epilogue, offering nothing substantially new. Indeed, after Schumann's last symphony, the"Rhenish" composed in 1850, for two decades theLisztiansymphonic poem appeared to have displaced the symphony as the leading form of large-scale instrumental music. However, Liszt also composed two programmatic choral symphonies during this time,Faust andDante. If the symphony had otherwise been eclipsed, it was not long before it re-emerged in a "second age" in the 1870s and 1880s, with the symphonies byBruckner,Brahms,Tchaikovsky,Saint-Saëns,Borodin,Dvořák, andFranck—works which largely avoided the programmatic elements of Berlioz and Liszt and dominated the concert repertory for at least a century.[21]
Over the course of the 19th century, composers continued to add to the size of the symphonic orchestra. Around the beginning of the century, a full-scale orchestra would consist of the string section plus pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, and lastly a set of timpani.[26] This is, for instance, the scoring used in Beethoven's symphoniesnumbered 1,2,4,7, and8. Trombones, which had previously been confined to church and theater music, came to be added to the symphonic orchestra, notably in Beethoven's5th,6th, and9th symphonies. The combination of bass drum, triangle, and cymbals (sometimes also: piccolo), which 18th-century composers employed as a coloristic effect in so-called "Turkish music", came to be increasingly used during the second half of the 19th century without any such connotations of genre.[26] By the time of Mahler (see below), it was possible for a composer to write a symphony scored for "a veritable compendium of orchestral instruments".[26] In addition to increasing in variety of instruments, 19th-century symphonies were gradually augmented with more string players and more wind parts, so that the orchestra grew substantially in sheer numbers, as concert halls likewise grew.[26]
Towards the end of the 19th century,Gustav Mahler began writing long, large-scale symphonies that he continued composing into the early 20th century. HisThird Symphony, completed in 1896, is one of the longest regularly performed symphonies at around 100 minutes in length for most performances. TheEighth Symphony was composed in 1906 and is nicknamed the "Symphony of a Thousand" because of the large number of voices required to perform the work.
The 20th century saw further diversification in the style and content of works that composers labeledsymphonies.[27] Some composers, includingDmitri Shostakovich,Sergei Rachmaninoff, andCarl Nielsen, continued to write in the traditional four-movement form, while other composers took different approaches:Jean Sibelius'Symphony No. 7, his last, is in one movement,Richard Strauss'Alpine Symphony, in one movement, split into twenty-two parts, detailing an eleven hour hike through the mountains andAlan Hovhaness's Symphony No. 9,Saint Vartan—originally Op. 80, changed to Op. 180—composed in 1949–50, is in twenty-four.[28]
A concern with unification of the traditional four-movement symphony into a single, subsuming formal conception had emerged in the late 19th century. This has been called a "two-dimensional symphonic form", and finds its key turning point inArnold Schoenberg'sChamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 (1909), which was followed in the 1920s by other notable single-movement German symphonies, includingKurt Weill's First Symphony (1921),Max Butting's Chamber Symphony, Op. 25 (1923), andPaul Dessau's 1926 Symphony.[29]
Alongside this experimentation, other 20th-century symphonies deliberately attempted to evoke the 18th-century origins of the genre, in terms of form and even musical style, with prominent examples beingSergei Prokofiev'sSymphony No. 1 "Classical" of 1916–17 and theSymphony in C byIgor Stravinsky of 1938–40.[30]
There remained, however, certain tendencies. Designating a work a "symphony" still implied a degree of sophistication and seriousness of purpose. The wordsinfonietta came into use to designate a work that is shorter, of more modest aims, or "lighter" than a symphony, such asSergei Prokofiev'sSinfonietta fororchestra.[31][32]
Hector Berlioz originally wrote theGrande symphonie funèbre et triomphale formilitary band in 1840.Anton Reicha had composed his four-movement 'Commemoration' Symphony (also known asMusique pour célébrer le Mémorie des Grands Hommes qui se sont Illustrés au Service de la Nation Française) for large wind ensemble even earlier, in 1815, for ceremonies associated with the reburial of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette[43][better source needed]
After those early efforts, few symphonies were written for wind bands until the 20th century when more symphonies were written forconcert band than in past centuries. Although examples exist from as early as 1932, the first such symphony of importance isNikolai Myaskovsky's Symphony No. 19, Op. 46, composed in 1939.[44] Some further examples arePaul Hindemith'sSymphony in B-flat for Band, composed in 1951;Morton Gould's Symphony No. 4 "West Point", composed in 1952;Vincent Persichetti's Symphony No. 6, Op. 69, composed in 1956;Vittorio Giannini's Symphony No. 3, composed in 1958;Alan Hovhaness's Symphonies No. 4, Op. 165, No. 7, "Nanga Parvat", Op. 175, No. 14, "Ararat", Op. 194, and No. 23, "Ani", Op. 249, composed in 1958, 1959, 1961, and 1972 respectively;[45]John Barnes Chance's Symphony No. 2, composed in 1972;Alfred Reed's 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th symphonies, composed in 1979, 1988, 1992, and 1994 respectively; eight of the ten numbered symphonies ofDavid Maslanka;[46]six symphonies to date byJulie Giroux (although she is currently working on a seventh[47]);Johan de Meij'sSymphony No. 1 "The Lord of the Rings", composed in 1988, and his Symphony No. 2 "The Big Apple", composed in 1993; Yasuhide Ito's Symphony in Three Scenes 'La Vita', composed in 1998, which is his third symphony for wind band;John Corigliano'sSymphony No. 3 'Circus Maximus, composed in 2004;Denis Levaillant's PachaMama Symphony, composed in 2014 and 2015,[48] and James M. Stephenson's Symphony No. 2 which was premiered by the United States Marine Band ("The President's Own") and received both the National Band Association's William D. Revelli (2017)[49] and the American Bandmasters Association's Sousa/Ostwald (2018)[50] awards.
In some forms of English, the word "symphony" is also used to refer to theorchestra, the large ensemble that often performs these works. The word "symphony" appears in the name of many orchestras, for example, theLondon Symphony Orchestra, theBoston Symphony Orchestra, theSt. Louis Symphony, theHouston Symphony, or Miami'sNew World Symphony. For some orchestras, "(city name) Symphony" provides a shorter version of the full name; for instance, theOED gives "Vancouver Symphony" as a possible abbreviated form ofVancouver Symphony Orchestra.[51][52] Additionally, in common usage, a person may say they are going out to hear a symphony perform, a reference to the orchestra and not the works on the program. These usages are not common inBritish English.
^Count taken from Graham Parkes, "The symphonic structure ofAlso sprach Zarathustra: a preliminary outline", inLuchte, James (2011).Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Before Sunrise. Bloomsbury Publishing.ISBN978-1441118455.. Excerpts online at[1].
^The conjecture about the child Mozart's three-movement preference is made by Gärtner, who notes that Mozart's fatherLeopold and other older composers already preferred four. SeeGärtner, Heinz (1994).John Christian Bach: Mozart's Friend and Mentor. Hal Leonard Corporation.ISBN0931340799. Excerpts online at[2].
^Beethoven's Ninth is not the first choral symphony, though it is surely the most celebrated one. Beethoven was anticipated byPeter von Winter'sSchlacht-Sinfonie ("Battle Symphony"), which includes a concluding chorus and was written in 1814, ten years before Beethoven's Ninth. Source:LaRue, Bonds, Walsh, and Wilson 2001
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