The Symphony: From Mannheim to Mahler E-Book

Christopher Tarrant

• Herausgeber: Faber Music Limited
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 260

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The full eBook version of The Symphony: From Mannheim to Mahler in fixed-layout format. The Symphony: From Mannheim to Mahler is a fascinating and accessible guide that considers the development of the symphony from a number of different perspectives: analytical, historical, and critical. Exploring important milestones, touchpoints, events, key works, and the composers that surround the genre, it also includes a composer timeline, detailed case studies and comprehensive music examples. This handy and informative book is ideal for GCSE, A-Level, and undergraduate music students, as well as anyone wanting to study and learn more about the genre. Christopher Tarrant is Lecturer in Music Analysis at Newcastle University. He received his PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London and now teaches and writes about concert music of the long nineteenth century with a special emphasis on theory of form and the Nordic symphony. Christopher is also a violinist and conductor. Natalie Wild is Director of Research and Deputy Director of Music at the Music in Secondary Schools Trust (MiSST). Her research focuses on the role a classical music education can play in breaking down social barriers. Natalie has taught both GCSE and A-Level Music for many years as Head of Music in various inner-city schools.

Leseprobe

the symphony: from mannheim to mahler

The Symphony: From Mannheim to Mahler

christopher tarrant and natalie wild

© 2022 by Christopher Tarrant and Natalie Wild

All rights administered worldwide by Faber Music Ltd

Bloomsbury House 74–77 Great Russell Street London wc1

b 3da

Music processed by Donald Thomson

Cover designed by Chloë Alexander

Text designed by Agnesi Text

Printed in England by Caligraving Ltd

All rights reserved

ISBN10: 0-571-54240-9

EAN13: 978-0-571-59214-2

Cover image:

The orchestra

(Gustav Mahler conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)

by Max Oppenheimer 1923

(Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

Contents

Foreword

by Christopher Tarrant and Natalie Wild

1

Timeline of events

4

Case studies

6

1 A genre in crisis?

9

Part I: Contexts

2 The early symphony

19

3 Patronage and public concerts

49

Part II: Materials

4 Melody, harmony, and syntax

59

5 Form, structure, and cycle

80

6 Sonata form

99

7 Tonality

116

Part III: Ideas

8 Absolute music and programme music

131

9 The symphony outside Germany and Austria

156

10 The symphony’s second age

169

Glossary

183

Bibliography

189

To all music teachers and educators,

especially those who helped to shape our own musical development:

Sarah Brown, Peter Burbridge, J.P.E. Harper-Scott, Jane Higgins, Pearl Mace,

Nikki Rogers, Keith Smith and Graham Tear.

In memory of Alan Broadbent, whose generosity, charisma

and energetic passion inspired generations of musicians.

Foreword

The idea for this book came from a chance conversation between the two authors – one an

academic, one a teacher – about the challenges facing music education. A review of teaching

materials suggested that symphonic repertoire from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

which takes up substantial space in A-level syllabi, is largely taught chronologically, without a

critical angle, and without teaching students to draw together contexts, materials, and ideas.

The ethos of this project has been to build a connection between cutting-edge, academically

rigorous ideas and practical, pedagogically informed communicative strategies. Inevitably,

compromises have to be made in terms both of content and structure in order to create a

one-volume introduction to such a broad subject. Our hope is that the chapters contained in

this volume will not be read as the final word, but rather an opening-up and opening-out of a

subject that readers will continue to pursue independently.

The structure of the book, while chronological in certain limited respects, approaches dif-

ferent topics related to symphonic composition in a way that reflects recent academic debates

about instrumental music in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In discussions of a topic

that spans a century and a half, the trap is to lapse into purely chronological description, and

a Whig view of history. The idea of constant progress is resisted in this book, along with the

idea that the symphony was a stable category in the 150-year period under discussion. We

have tried to give fair emphasis not just to the continuities and the sense of progression and

development during this time, but also the discontinuities and ruptures that have character-

ised the genre, especially in the nineteenth century, while also shining a light on marginalised

composers forgotten by history.

We have attempted to strike a balance between idealist and materialist approaches to this

topic. A material study of the symphony includes all the obvious concrete objects that bring

the genre to life: instruments, concert halls, printed music, published scores, and the like. We

are also crucially and critically interested in musical materials – the ‘stuff’ of composition –

which includes things like melodies, textures, cadences, and forms. These materials contrast

with the much grander ‘ideas’ which have propagated, supported, fuelled, shaped and chal-

lenged the enterprise of symphonic composition; such ideas as nationalism, programmaticism,

historicism, and the canon have all had an impact. The two approaches – one concerned with

materials, which we focus on in Part II of the book, and the other focusing on contexts and

ideas, which forms much of Parts I and III – are interdependent. One cannot succeed without

the other.

the symphony

2

1

Carl Dahlhaus,

Foundations of Music History

(Cambridge, 1983).

This tension, which was articulated by Carl Dahlhaus in 1983, helps us to frame one of the

central issues of so-called ‘historical music’ and its ‘relevance’ in the third decade of the twenty-

first century.

1

Much of this music, particularly in the earlier stages of its development, would

have been created and performed simply for the enjoyment of the wealthy and the powerful,

and as a means for them to project their wealth and power. For much eighteenth-century

orchestral music this is simply a truism, and one that has been used by some as a lever in an

attempt to discredit the entire pursuit of performing, listening to, and studying this repertoire

as elitist. The problem with this view is that this music is not simply an historical artefact. The

strange thing about pieces of music is that they can be brought into life again and again. Pieces

of music endure. They were created at a specific historical moment, but they have the unique

ability to transcend epochs: they appear to us now, here in the present, and it is our responsi-

bility to try to understand them and to bring all the knowledge that has accrued since the time

of composition in order to broaden and deepen that understanding. In other words, works

of art repay study, and these particular works of art exist here, in the present, where they are

no longer the preserve of only the very rich and the very powerful. The responsibility, and the

rewards, are ours.

Some words of thanks are owed. We would first like to thank Lesley Rutherford for her sup-

port throughout this project, which was first initiated before the coronavirus pandemic; her

crucial advice and guidance has endured through the writing stage, much of which took place

during the various lockdowns. We would also like to thank Rachel Topham for her encourage-

ment at the proposal stage. Many friends have kindly read parts of the book and have given

valuable feedback before it went to press. In some cases these have been colleagues in the

teaching profession who have offered their expert advice in terms of how the book could best

be geared towards use in the classroom. Our thanks go to Hatty Ekbery, Caleb Sibley, and Matt

Mitchell for their words of advice and encouragement. A number of academic colleagues have

also spent time reading samples of the project and their help, especially in matters of historical

and theoretical detail, has been hugely valuable. We warmly thank Jon Banks, Oliver Chandler,

David Curran, Sarah Moynihan, and James Savage-Hanford for their expertise. Lastly, we would

like to thank Craig Lawton for sharing his specific knowledge on sources for Mahler’s music.

christopher tarrant and natalie wild

Timeline of events

from mannheim . . .

Johann Stamitz (1717–1757)

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)

C

. 1741

Johann Stamitz begins employment at the Mannheim court

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–1799)

1748

Holywell Music Room, Europe’s first purpose-built concert hall,

built in Oxford

1750

Sinfonia in D, Op. 3 No. 2 by Johann Stamitz

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

1775

Hanover Square Rooms established as the venue for subscription

concerts in London

1778

Symphony No. 31 in D, ‘Paris’, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

1779

Symphony No. 1 in G by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

1789

The storming of the Bastille signals the start of the French Revolution

1795

Symphony No. 104 in D, ‘London’, by Joseph Haydn

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

1800

Symphony No. 1 in C by Ludwig van Beethoven

Hector Berlioz (1803–1869)

Louise Farrenc (1804–1875)

1804

Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of the French

1805

Première of Symphony No. 3 in E

b

, ‘Eroica’, by Ludwig van Beethoven

5

timeline of events

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)

Franz Liszt (1811–1886)

Richard Wagner (1813–1883)

1817

Philharmonic Society of London (now the Royal Philharmonic Society)

commissions a new symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven

1824

Première of Symphony No. 9 in D minor, ‘Choral’,

by Ludwig van Beethoven

Anton Bruckner (1824–1896)

1830

Symphonie Fantastique

by Hector Berlioz

1831

Philharmonic Society of London commissions a new symphony

by Felix Mendelssohn

1833

Première of Symphony No. 4 in A, ‘Italian’, by Felix Mendelssohn

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)

1854

Première of

Les Préludes

(the first tone poem) by Franz Liszt

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)

Carl Nielsen (1865–1931)

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957)

Amy Beach (1867–1944)

1870

Women allowed to enrol in composition classes

at the Paris Conservatoire

1871

Unification of Germany

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912)

1876

Première of Symphony No. 1 in C minor by Johannes Brahms

1893

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, ‘From the New World’, by Antonín Dvořák

1895

The ‘Proms’ begin at Queen’s Hall, London

(later moved to the Royal Albert Hall)

1896

Symphony No. 3 in D minor by Gustav Mahler (revised 1902)

. . . to mahler

Case studies

Performances of all case study works included in this book can be found by following

the links below.

Scores for all examples used in this book can be found on imslp.org

Chapter 2

Sinfonia in D, Op. 3 No. 2, Johann Stamitz

Recommended performance: Academy of Ancient Music

(Christopher Hogwood)

bit.ly/StamitzSinfonia

Chapter 2

Symphony No. 31 in D, ‘Paris’, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Recommended performance: London Mozart Players (Jane Glover)

Mvt 1 – bit.ly/MozartParis1

Mvt 2 – bit.ly/MozartParis2

Mvt 3 – bit.ly/MozartParis3

Chapter 4

Symphony No. 4 in A, ‘Italian’, Felix Mendelssohn

Recommended performance: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

(Sir John Eliot Gardiner)

Mvt 1 – bit.ly/MendelssohnItalian1

Mvt 2 – bit.ly/MendelssohnItalian2

Mvt 3 – bit.ly/MendelssohnItalian3

Mvt 4 – bit.ly/MendelssohnItalian4

Chapter 6

Symphony No. 1 in G, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

Recommended performance: BBC Symphony Orchestra (Rafael Payare)

bit.ly/BologneSymphony

Chapter 7

Symphony No. 104 in D, ‘London’, Joseph Haydn

Recommended performance: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (Bernard Haitink)

bit.ly/HaydnLondon

7

case studies

Chapter 7

Symphony No. 1 in C, Ludwig van Beethoven

Recommended performance: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

(Daniel Barenboim)

bit.ly/BeethovenSymphonyNo1

Chapter 8

Symphonie Fantastique

, Hector Berlioz

Recommended performance: London Symphony Orchestra (Colin Davis)

Mvt 1 – bit.ly/SymphonieFantastique1

Mvt 2 – bit.ly/SymphonieFantastique2

Mvt 3 – bit.ly/SymphonieFantastique3

Mvt 4 – bit.ly/SymphonieFantastique4

Mvt 5 – bit.ly/SymphonieFantastique5

Chapter 10

Symphony No. 3 in D minor, Gustav Mahler

Recommended performance: Lucerne Festival Orchestra (Claudio Abbado)

bit.ly/MahlerSymphony3

1

A genre in crisis?

The symphony and the ‘canon’

The

symphony

is viewed traditionally as the most important genre in classical music. More

than any other musical genre from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the symphony

– an extensive work for large ensemble – embodies the abstract ideas of music for its own

sake: seriousness, transcendence, unity, even universality. This is more than can be claimed for

other public genres such as

opera

with its reliance on text, or the

concerto

which hinges on

the virtuosity of the soloist. This book will approach the symphony, not via the linear narrative

that we are familiar with, but from a number of different perspectives: analytical, historical,

and critical.

It is easy to construct a history of the symphony that only includes a handful of well-known

composers, and it is even easier to write a history of the symphony that only includes male

composers from the German-speaking area of Central and Northern Europe. Such histories

were common during the twentieth century, and we therefore have a small group of big names

that form a core repertoire (which we refer to as a

canon

of works). The vast majority of

symphonies that were composed in the period 1750–1900 are invisible even to regular concert-

goers, let alone the general public, and of the thousands of symphonies composed during this

time, we regularly hear only a handful of them (for instance, many people have heard music

by Mozart and Beethoven, but few have heard Wagenseil or Reicha). It is also important to

acknowledge the extreme underrepresentation of women in the symphonic canon. This comes

as a result of many complex social and economic factors. The access that most women had to

a professional musical education was virtually non-existent outside the context of the opera

house. Though many middle-class women received education as amateur musicians, a career

as a symphonist would have been unthinkable in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even

for Clara Schumann (1819–1896) and Fanny Hensel (1805–1847), two of the most successful fe-

male composers of the nineteenth century, the public genre of the symphony was out of reach.

Unlike the traditional view of the symphony as a fixed genre on a pedestal, in reality it

has been constantly in flux since its development in the middle of the eighteenth century. It

began as a hybrid of the Italian orchestral concerto and the opera overture, and this fusion of

influences is expressed in the great diversity of works that were composed around 1750. As

overtures became longer and more structurally complex, sometimes incorporating music at

different contrasting tempi, there seemed to be as many different ways of writing symphonies

as there were composers interested in writing them. Before conventions had been established,

a definition of the symphony would have been virtually impossible.

the symphony

10

Defining a genre

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) is credited with laying down the standards of the symphony as we

know it today – a large-scale work set in four movements for orchestra. However, this claim

ignores three important points. First, it was in fact an older generation of composers including

Stamitz and Sammartini who started writing works for orchestra following a multi-movement

plan that Haydn would later adopt and develop. Stamitz’s court orchestra in Mannheim was

the original catalyst for symphonic composition in the middle of the eighteenth century,

and Haydn drew significant influence from the Mannheim School for his own compositions.

Secondly, Haydn’s output of symphonies only stabilised in its final third (chronologically); his

practice before this point was strikingly unpredictable. And thirdly, as soon as they had been

established, Haydn, as much as any other composer, began to play with those conventions,

often in an experimental way, frequently stretching them to the limit of audience expectations

(and sometimes beyond them).

So, how do we define the symphony? Let us consider a hypothesis:

◆

A symphony is structured in four movements

Although this at first appears to be a basic, elementary, even banal comment, the number of

exceptions to this rule starts to multiply as we begin to think about it. There are many

examples

from around 1800 that can be used to undermine this simple statement. Take Mozart’s (1756–

1791) ‘Prague’ Symphony, or his ‘Paris’ Symphony, both of which contain only three movements

(both lack a Minuet). Or Beethoven’s (1770–1827) Sixth Symphony, the ‘Pastoral’, which contains

five movements (the last three of which are connected together and are performed without

breaks). What about Schubert’s (1797–1828) Symphony in B minor, the so-called

‘Unfinished’,

which is constructed in only two movements (not because he died, as some

people think,

but because of a number of personal, compositional, and aesthetic reasons)? And we find

the

occasional radical exception such as Haydn’s Symphony No. 60 in C major, nicknamed ‘Il

Distratto’ (‘The Distracted’) which is structured in six movements.

It is easy to shoot down the claims that define a genre, yet such claims still persist. Here

are some more statements about the symphony during this period, some, all, or none of which

might be true. Can you think of any exceptions to these statements?

◆

A symphony is a piece written for orchestra

◆

The symphony is an example of

absolute music

(i.e., it is not influenced by

non-musical ideas)

◆

Symphonies were written for performance in the concert hall

◆

Symphonies do not feature soloists

◆

The symphony is an Austro-German genre

◆

The symphony is an Italian genre

◆

The symphony is a European genre

◆

Only men wrote symphonies

11

a genre in crisis?

◆

Only white Europeans wrote symphonies

◆

The symphony is a serious genre

◆

Beethoven represents the end of a tradition

◆

Beethoven represents the beginning of a tradition

◆

Berlioz wrote symphonies

◆

Berlioz did not write any symphonies

◆

A symphony can be constructed in one single movement

◆

Symphonies have form

As you can see, as soon as an attempt is made to describe something in terms of genre, the

concrete examples escape those descriptions. This is what makes it such an exciting genre

to study and explore, as well as to contribute to as a composer. Haydn certainly must have

thought along these lines, for without a clear conception of what the rules of the game were,

he would have found it difficult to play against them.

The ‘Eroica’ and the romantic turn

While the symphony may be viewed now as the most important instrumental genre in the

late eighteenth century, it was not so important at the time, and certainly not as popular as

the piano concerto or opera. The concerto offered the composer a chance to show off their

virtuosity at the keyboard and opera was by far the more popular genre with audiences. While

the opera house was a well-established institution, the purpose-built concert hall was still a

new concept in the late eighteenth century, and the symphony was viewed as the type of com-

position that might bring you some prestige as a composer, and even some measure of fame,

but rarely much money. Things began to change, however, in the first years of the nineteenth

century. It was during this time that Beethoven became the pioneer of a new generation.

It is difficult to overestimate how radically Beethoven changed the essence of the sym-

phony in the years after 1800. In his first two contributions to the genre there is a clear expan-

sion of the materials inherited from Haydn and Mozart. These musical materials often involve

pithy themes and elegantly proportioned forms; ideas of balance and closure were strongly

expressed in the eighteenth-century repertoire, and even as Beethoven began to experiment

with classical norms as a young composer, the eighteenth-century inheritance was audible.

It is with his Third Symphony, the ‘Eroica’ (meaning ‘heroic’, composed in 1804), that we see

the first instance of what the future of the genre would be. After this, the symphony would

no longer be a poor relation to opera or the concerto, with composers able to produce them

quickly in their hundreds. The symphony was now a major work, self-standing and serious in

nature. It represented a shift away from the technical virtuosity of the star performer and

towards unity and the importance of the collective effort, often having philosophical, political,

or sometimes nationalistic overtones.

The symphony had expanded in length, shape, volume, and weight with Beethoven, and

the ultimate radical move in his Ninth Symphony (1824) was to include a chorus and a quar-

tet of vocal soloists in its final movement (which is as long as an entire symphony on its

own). There was a feeling at this point that the genre had been stretched to such an extreme

the symphony

12

that its continued existence would be called into question. Efforts were made to follow in

Beethoven’s footsteps, notably by figures such as Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) and Robert

Schumann (1810–1856), but this seemed to stall in the middle of the nineteenth century. This

is not to say that there were no symphonies written at this time. Mid-nineteenth-century

symphonic composition was marked by an acute crisis that was played out in the so-called

‘War of the

Romantics’ – a series of musical and philosophical debates, exchanges, and con-

troversies which raged around that time. On one side were those advocating for the objective

purity of the genre as so-called

absolute music

. This term was originally coined by Richard

Wagner (1813–1883) as an insult, but it was later self-applied by those who were advocating for

it. Important figures included the academic Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) and the lawyer and

philosopher Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904). On the other side of the debate stood a radical new

generation of composers that included Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), Wagner, and Franz Liszt

(1811–1886). Each was reimagining music by forging a new path with a distinctive voice, and all

were interested in composing

programme music

(more of which in Chapter 8).

The radical changes that the symphony underwent in the middle of the nineteenth cen-

tury included new possibilities such as soloists (vocal or instrumental), implied or explicit ‘pro-

grammes’ taken from literary or extra-musical sources, a vastly increased palette of orchestral

colours and combinations, and the abandonment of a structure that had been regarded as

more-or-less obligatory since Haydn. These developments were closely linked to the birth of

two new genres which would jostle for position for the next hundred years. These were the

music drama

(

Gesamtkunstwerk

or ‘total artwork’) which Wagner had been developing as

a way of bringing the different art forms (music, text, drama) together in his operas, and the

tone poem

or

symphonic poem

(

Tondichtung

) which was a piece for large orchestra, much

looser in construction than the symphony, and usually taking inspiration from, if not explicitly

modelled on, a literary source. Franz Liszt was its most important pioneer (examples include

Les Prèludes

,

Hamlet

,

and

Prometheus

).

Centre and periphery

Vienna continued to be the centre of gravity for symphonic composition and performance

during the second half of the nineteenth century, but this period is also marked by a consider-

able expansion of symphonic practice beyond the historical hubs of Vienna, Paris, and London,

and importantly, well beyond the German-speaking world. Interestingly, it was just at the point

when the perceived crisis was coming to a head that symphonic composition began to move

away from Austria and Germany and take up residence in areas that have problematically been

described as the European ‘peripheries’. In the final quarter of the century it became normal

(or perhaps even necessary) for composers in the UK, France, Denmark, Finland, Bohemia,

Poland, and Russia, to name only a handful of countries, to be writing symphonies – and

particularly ones that were political, patriotic, or nationalistic in tone. It was also around this

time that such far-flung places as Copenhagen, Helsinki, and St Petersburg were developing as

important concert-giving cities.

The concept of centre and periphery makes the figure of Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)

particularly intriguing. Mahler was active as a composer from the 1880s until his death in 1911.

13

a genre in crisis?

On paper he has all the markings of an Austro-German canonical composer in the romantic

tradition: he lived and worked in Vienna, his music is now considered part of the core repertoire

and he wrote nine (which, for some reason, is a magical number for composers) symphonies.

As soon as we peer beneath the surface, however, we find a much more complex relationship

with tradition. Although he worked in the undisputed epicentre of symphonic composition,

he came from Moravia, which lies in the modern-day Czech Republic, but which in Mahler’s

time formed part of the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although by no means a backwater, it

was not a major cosmopolitan centre. During his time in Vienna he was considered something

of an outsider, not just because of his Bohemian heritage but crucially because of his Jewish

faith, which meant he was subject to various restrictions imposed by the Viennese musical

establishment.

Mahler was not a composer by trade. Rather, he made his living on the conducting podium

and spent his summers, when he was not required to conduct opera, in the country working

on his vast symphonies. Many of these works, which are now widely considered to be time-

less masterworks, were met with scant praise at the time they were first performed. It took

the efforts of musicians, conductors, and scholars decades later to promote and, to a certain

degree, rehabilitate his output. The most important figures in this effort were the conductor

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) and the philosopher Theodor Adorno (1903–1969). There is

also an aesthetic argument to be made: although superficially we might consider Mahler’s mu-

sic to be a contributor to romanticism (however that may be described

musically: big tunes,

lush orchestration, dramatic tension), digging deeper, it becomes apparent that there are

some strikingly un-romantic and often overtly modernist ideas that can be found in his output,

and that it may be more advantageous to consider Mahler as belonging to the beginning of the

twentieth century rather than as a residue of the nineteenth.

Historical problems

The paragraphs above are not intended to provide a complete picture of the history of the

symphony over 150 years. Rather, they are an attempt to challenge, question, and probe con-

ventional ideas, including that the symphony is somehow ‘core’ or privileged over and above

other forms of composition, or that the history of symphonic composition unfolds in a straight-

forwardly linear fashion. Addressing the second point, the fact that Hector Berlioz’s radical

and at times monstrous

Symphonie Fantastique

(1830) was composed before Mendelssohn’s

much more classically conservative ‘Italian’ Symphony (1833), and that both symphonies retain

their place in the established and timeless concert repertoire, should arguably give us enough

cause to abandon any idea of a linear progression from classicism to romanticism and then

to modernism (whatever those words might mean in practice). Regarding the symphony as

the core of the concert repertoire, these works were not easily accessible at the time of com-

position to anybody who wanted to listen – quite the contrary. The vast majority of the sort of

notated compositions that we understand to belong to the Western Art Music tradition (one

in which the musical conception is notated and then reproduced in sound in a performance)

would have been heard in churches – not venues where symphonies would have been regularly

performed. It is therefore all the more remarkable that the symphony has survived.

the symphony

14

Such a sense of survival is not just a surprise in economic terms (after all, paying for large

numbers of musicians can be expensive); it is also striking on purely aesthetic grounds. This

became particularly noticeable after Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (first performed in 1824). It

is remarkable that anyone could compose a symphony after such an existential threat to the

identity of the genre, and critics at the time had declared that the genre was now dead. This

was a mantra that was repeated throughout the nineteenth century: someone writes a sym-

phony that seems to kill the genre stone dead, as if to say ‘the symphony is done – THE END’,

only for someone else to come along and write another one. There are few better examples

of this than Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s (1840–1893) Sixth Symphony in B minor, ‘Pathétique’,

Op. 74, which ends with a slow finale that descends to the bowels of the orchestra in a morbid

farewell (the composer died less than a fortnight after the première). Yet this was followed

only a matter of months later in spring 1894 by the first performance of Carl Nielsen’s (1865–

1931) First Symphony – a work with a youthful disregard for conventions of tonality, form, and

scoring, and which belongs to the output of a new and younger generation of early-modernist

symphonists. In many respects, the history of the symphony in this period is a history, against

the odds, of its survival.

The structure of the book

This book aims to provide a starting point for those who are interested in the symphony from a

pedagogical position, for students, as well as for those who may simply be interested in learning

more about the music they hear on a regular basis. It is divided into three parts, each of which

has a distinct aim. Part I establishes some of the main contexts for symphonic composition.

Who was composing these things? What were the criteria that regulated the genre? Where

were these compositions performed? Who was performing them? And who was paying for

it? Part II deals with the material detail of the symphony during the period in question. These

works, which are perceptible to us through the trace they leave in their scores, exist not only

in history but also now in the present, and as musicians we have a responsibility to engage with

them independently of what others may have said. Therefore, the central section of the book

aims analytically to deepen our engagement with individual works as well as the genre more

broadly. Topics covered include the small-scale structure of the music – individual themes and

motives (broadly referred to as musical

syntax

); the large-scale organisation and combination

of these smaller components (which we usually consider in terms of musical

form

); and closely

linked to both of these, the question of how

tonality

operates in the period under discussion.

After this excavation of the musical detail, Part III turns to broader questions of genre. What

makes a symphony? What might ideas such as politics, nationality, and nationalism have to do

with symphonic composition during this time?

The structure of this book is neither chronological (though there is a sense of this) nor

composer-centred, but rather it is organised thematically. It cycles through the various topics

as they relate to the whole 150-year period under discussion with the aim of repeatedly

revisiting composers, events, and ideas, each time from a new and different perspective. The

structure builds up a series of interlaced layers, with each chapter deepening and enriching

the others. During this process the book will focus in on important milestones, touchpoints,

15

a genre in crisis?

case studies, events, works, and composers as they serve to exemplify the debates and contro-

versies surrounding the genre. This generates a deeper and more engaging narrative than can

be provided by a linear historical account. The book has been written to be enjoyed from

cover to cover, but it might also be employed in a more piecemeal fashion; readers may wish

to dip in and out, reading certain sections as the need arises. Prior knowledge of the genre is

not a prerequisite for a fruitful engagement with the debates and materials contained here,

and,

although the ability to engage with notated scores is necessary to fully grasp the ideas

presented in Part II, the majority of the book will be accessible to anyone who is interested in

listening to this music and learning more about it.

Part I: Contexts

2

The early symphony

Eighteenth-century music and the figure of the

Kapellmeister

For eighteenth-century composers the role of

Kapellmeister

(master of the chapel choir)

at a wealthy court was a desirable position to hold. The scope of the job stretched beyond

simply composing music for the court orchestra. Other duties the

Kapellmeister

would have

been expected to undertake included rehearsing, conducting, administrative tasks, and teach-

ing members of the household and other wealthy courtiers. It is therefore useful to think of

this role as something similar to a civil servant who could produce new works at speed, in

step with fast-changing musical fashions, and for immediate use. The more familiar idea of

the composer as a romantic artist concerned with carefully shaping masterpieces for future