Share Some Super Song Symphonies Sans Beethoven and Mahler!!!

[Joe Barron]

Ives No. 4, with the chorus singing Watchman in the first movement and Bethany, sans words, in the last. Also his Holidays symphony, which ends with a chorus sining a "God! Beneath thy guiding hand" in the Thanksgiving movement.

So there.

[Cato]

Ives No. 4, with the chorus singing Watchman in the first movement and Bethany, sans words, in the last. Also his Holidays symphony, which ends with a chorus sining a "God! Beneath thy guiding hand" in the Thanksgiving movement.

So there.

You are quite right: Ives is not the first name which came to me for "song symphony," but the Fourth rawks on all levels!

Speaking of "early" Americans, there is also the Roy Harris  Symphony #4 based on folk songs, but there is no singing.  (A propagandistic WWII work of sorts.)

[owlice]

Beg pardon, but there most definitely IS singing in the Harris Folk Song Symphony. The tunes are nice, but the symphony is dreck.

(Sang this once at Lincoln Center, with Botstein. There's a reason this isn't performed very often -- it's dreck! Tuneful, but dreck just the same!)

[karlhenning]

Tuneful, but dreck just the same!

Quoted for truth.  Generally, I mean; I am in no position to comment on the Harris, specifically  0:)

[owlice]

Quoted for truth.  Generally, I mean; I am in no position to comment on the Harris, specifically  0:)

I am; it's dreck!!

[karlhenning]

Oh, I quite contentedly take your word for't, owlice! 

[springrite]

I have the Harris Folksong Symphony and have listened to it three times.

It is tuneful, for sure.

Considering how much I love Harris, I will quit while he's still ahead...


Britten Spring Symphony is one of my favorite.

[Cato]

Beg pardon, but there most definitely IS singing in the Harris Folk Song Symphony. The tunes are nice, but the symphony is dreck.

(Sang this once at Lincoln Center, with Botstein. There's a reason this isn't performed very often -- it's dreck! Tuneful, but dreck just the same!)

Pardon is begged!   0:)   I found a reference to it which implied the songs were used instrumentally only.

For VERY early American symphonies based on songs, and this time I know there is no singing because I heard it once in disbelief, the Santa Claus Symphony by William Fry, which weaves in "Rock-a-Bye Baby" as well as "Adeste Fideles" in its soundscape!  

[Superhorn]

  Oops ! I didn't understand the topic rightly !  The Dukas symphony is not one with voices ! Sorry ! But do try to get a recording. You'll love it.
  I also have a recording of a symphony by Polish-born Shostakovich pupil Moshe Weinberg which is entirely choral, with children's chorus also, sung un Hebrew, but unfortunately without a translation.
  It's a live recording with the late Yuri Ahronovitch and the Jerusalem symphony, and choral forces. It's sort of like Shostakovich with a Jewish accent. Quite interesting.



                             

[karlhenning]

  Oops ! I didn't understand the topic rightly !  The Dukas symphony is not one with voices ! Sorry ! But do try to get a recording. You'll love it.

No worries!  And I appreciate your putting the Dukas symphony on my sonic radar, so to speak.

[owlice]

I found a reference to it which implied the songs were used instrumentally only.

Given the text of one of the folk songs, that would have been preferable in spots!

[Cato]

Given the text of one of the folk songs, that would have been preferable in spots!

Wocka Wocka! 

It was, however, something of a propaganda work: Prokofiev and Shostakovich would understand working with agitprop texts.

On the Dukas Symphony: yes, it is a wonderful work, and makes you yearn for more...but there is only the one.