Symphony

V

Haydn and Mozart: The Classic Symphony

The climax of the 18th-century development of the symphony came in Vienna toward the end of the century in the works of composers Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig von Beethoven. Haydn, the first of the great Viennese symphonists, experimented continually with new devices and techniques in orchestral composition. He composed 104 symphonies in which he greatly lengthened and expanded the symphonic form. Slow introductions often precede first movements; sonata movements often avoid thematic contrast; finales, either in sonata or rondo form, have a vigor and weight not found in the works of earlier composers. Haydn frequently used counterpoint (interwoven melodic lines), integrating it into symphonic style. These characteristic traits predominate even in symphonies known for a special feature, such as the gradual departure of the musicians in the Farewell (1772).

Although Haydn is often called the father of the symphony, the symphony had already had its beginnings in Italy and Germany. Haydn developed the symphony in four movements, gave it what is known as its classical form, and brought it to a new peak.

Haydn and his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart considerably influenced each other in symphonic technique. One of the greatest symphonic masters of all time, Mozart displayed in his 41 symphonies unsurpassed richness of imagination. Among the most famous are the Linz (1783), Prague (1786), and Haffner (1782); his last three, the E-flat Major, G Minor, and Jupiter (1788), raised the symphony permanently from an entertainment genre to a vehicle for profound expression.

VI

Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven produced nine symphonies in which he introduced the concept of thematic relationships between movements. Previously, the themes in each movement had been independent. Beethoven vastly expanded the expressive possibilities of the symphony and made it capable of portraying an immense range of emotions. This powerful expression is present to a considerable degree in Beethoven’s first two symphonies, but it becomes especially significant in his Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major (1805), known as the Eroica (“Heroic”—it was initially dedicated to Napoleon). This work consists of an immense first movement filled with creative energy, a profound slow movement in the form of a funeral march, an ebullient scherzo, and a finale in the form of variations on a theme. In Beethoven’s symphonies the third movement, formerly a minuet, had become a lively scherzo (Italian for “joke”).

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In his Symphony No. 5 in C Minor (1808) Beethoven introduced a four-note melodic and rhythmic motif that unifies the contrasting sections of the work. The Symphony No. 6 in F Major (1808), known as the Pastoral, describes the emotions aroused in the composer by the recollection of rural scenes. It uses some of the techniques of program music, telling a simple story and imitating such sounds as birdcalls and thunder. The Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (1824), considered one of Beethoven’s greatest works, ends in a choral movement based on the poem An die Freude (Ode to Joy), by German poet Friedrich von Schiller.

VII

19th Century

The emergence of romanticism in music brought two opposing trends in symphonic composition: the incorporation into the symphony of elements of program music and the concentration on ideals of classical form, with melodies and harmonies typical of the 19th century. Exemplifying the first trend were French composer Hector Berlioz and Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. Their symphonies have specific literary (or nonmusical) ideas behind them and share elements of the symphonic poem. A recurring melodic element in Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (1830), for example, represents the woman who haunts the composer’s dreams. The entire symphony describes his infatuation and obsession with her.

Austrian composer Franz Schubert, by contrast, was essentially classical in his approach to symphonic form; yet his melodies and harmonies are unmistakably romantic. His most famous symphonies are the Unfinished (1822) and the Great (1828). The symphonies of German composers Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann display the rich harmony characteristic of romanticism. Mendelssohn’s most famous symphonies—the Scottish (1842), Italian (1833), and Reformation (1841)—contain elements of program music that are suggested by the titles. Schumann’s symphonies, including the Spring (1841) and the Rhenish (1850), are structurally loose and very melodious.

The most successful synthesis of the classical symphonic form with the romantic style is to be found in the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms. These symphonies remain classical in their tightly knit structure yet romantic in their emotional expressiveness, although Brahms spurned unusual effects for their own sake. Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky wrote six symphonies, programmatic in spirit, that combine intense emotion with traces of Russian folk music and, especially in the last three, well-thought-out musical development.

Austrians Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler were influenced greatly by the music dramas of German composer Richard Wagner. Bruckner’s nine symphonies utilize massive orchestral sonorities and achieve unity through the repetition of melodic and rhythmic patterns. Mahler greatly expanded the length of the symphony and frequently altered its form with extensive passages of vocal music. Mahler emphasized the colors, or timbres, of individual instruments, and he introduced the practice of ending a symphony in a different key than it had begun. Previously, beginning and ending a symphony in the same key had been a means of achieving unity. Mahler wished his symphonies to “contain the world” and he incorporated religious and philosophical ideas about human aspirations and humankind’s struggle against fate. Czech composer Antonín Dvořák is noted for his skillful use of folk tunes, as in the symphony entitled From the New World (1893).

Well-known symphonies have also been written by French composers Vincent d’Indy and Camille Saint-Saëns and Russian composers Aleksandr Borodin and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. The Symphony in D Minor of Belgian-French composer César Franck exemplifies a 19th-century trend toward cyclical structure: the binding together of different movements by means of recurrent themes or motifs.

VIII

20th Century

During the 20th century a number of composers such as Charles Ives, an American, and Carl Nielsen, a Dane, came to grips with symphonic form in highly personal, innovative ways. Both experimented with polytonality and other modern compositional practices. Finnish composer Jean Sibelius influentially reinvigorated the symphony by moving in the opposite direction to Mahler, rigorously compressing the thematic material and development processes. Sibelius turned the traditional four-movement structure into three movements in his Symphony No. 5 (1919) and eventually into a single movement in his Symphony No. 7 (1924). In his nine symphonies English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams continued the tradition of Dvořák in employing a distinctive national style derived from folk music idioms, particularly in the Symphony No. 3, known as the Pastoral (1921), and the Symphony No. 5 (1943).

Other composers, following the ideals of neoclassicism, avoided the emotional expressiveness of romanticism and adapted the symphonic form to include 20th-century trends in harmony, rhythm, and texture. Russian composer Sergey Prokofiev wrote his Symphony No. 1 (1916-1917), known as the Classical Symphony, in the style of Haydn. Other examples of neoclassicism are to be found in the symphonies of Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky and those of American composers such as Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, and Roger Sessions.

Austrian composer Anton von Webern, using the techniques of the twelve-tone system, composed a brief symphony that can be played in about 11 minutes. Like the Kammersymphonie (Chamber Symphony, 1906) of his countryman Arnold Schoenberg, it illustrates a 20th-century trend toward conciseness and economy of form and resources.

The symphonies of Russian composer Sergey Rachmaninoff are romantic and traditional in form. The more innovative works of another Russian, Dmitry Shostakovich, are often large in scale and sometimes programmatic. They continue the tradition of Mahler in making the symphony an expression of the composer’s inner psychological turmoil.

In the period after World War II many composers continued to view the symphony as a vehicle for their most important statements, although the specific formal outlines they used were as varied as in the early 18th century. The four symphonies of England’s Sir Michael Tippett each reflect a different period of his stylistic development along fairly traditional structural lines, while the Turangalîla Symphony (1948) by Olivier Messiaen of France is a grand ten-movement suite of movements that revolve around a few central themes. Americans writing symphonies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries included Philip Glass, John Coregliano, and Eileen Taaffe Zwillich. In Europe symphonies came from British composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies; Estonian composer Arvo Pärt; Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara; German composer Hans Werner Henze; and Polish composers Henryk Górecki, Witold Lutosławski, and Andrzej Panufnik.