Your top 3 symphonists

[OzRadio]

Sorry, only allowed 3...

You son of a b*tch.

Beethoven
Brahms
Schubert

Wait, Brahms, Dvorak, Bruckner.

Wait, no. Haydn, Mahler, Sebulius.

Forget it.

[Guido]

Bear in mind that I only have about 6, I think, the surprise package for me, over some bigger names or ones with a more obvious Ivesian pedigree, is Alexei Lubimov. His recording has a lot of punch, and a lot of profile - nothing gets lost, lots that I don't hear elsewhere is audible here, and yet he also  finds more poetry than many others, to my ears. Love that recording!

Hopefully will get a chance to compare and contrast tomorrow. I only have two version on my ipod (Hamelin and Lubimov). I wish Donald Berman would record it - his playing is absolutely fabulous on the two "Unknown Ives" discs - he was a student of John Kirkpatrick and so had access to all the weird odds and sods that John Kirkpatrick was working up for publication. He has the requisite power and stridency mixed with joyous raucousness, but is also extraordinarily delicate and caressing when needed (he doesn't play as if this is High Modernism), and above all very much how Ives' himself played. His playing of The Celestial Railroad is one of my favourite things ever. But everything on those two discs is a pure delight. Truly revelatory.

[madaboutmahler]

My top 3 symphonists?

1. Bruckner
2. Mahler
3. Vaughan Williams

Excellent choices John, delighted yet surprised to see that you included Mahler! What would your top 3 be now?

For me:

Mahler
Bruckner
Beethoven

Brahms, Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams after that. But for me, however great the other ones I have mentioned plus a variety of others are, no one comes even close to Mahler!

[The Six]

Interesting how few people say Haydn or Mozart, yet they're still usually at the top of a general "top composers" list.

[Lethevich]

Interesting how few people say Haydn or Mozart, yet they're still usually at the top of a general "top composers" list.

Despite being rough contemporaries who wrote lots of symphonies, their stature is fairly different - most of Mozart's symphonies are barely worth listening to, and as a body they are the least consistent area of his output. Haydn is merely routinely ignored. Many are happy to semi-regularly listen to some of the London symphonies, but beyond that don't like the late classical style enough to consider seriously listening to the rest. I don't blame them, there's a lot to hear.

[TheGSMoeller]

Quite ironic, I saw this thread pop up and the first name that popped into my mind was Haydn.   

1. Haydn
2. Prokofiev
3. Bruckner

[Mirror Image]

Excellent choices John, delighted yet surprised to see that you included Mahler! What would your top 3 be now?

For me:

Mahler
Bruckner
Beethoven

Brahms, Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams after that. But for me, however great the other ones I have mentioned plus a variety of others are, no one comes even close to Mahler!

Yeah, this was back in June of last year. Now, it would probably look like this:

1. Vaughan Williams
2. Shostakovich
3. Bruckner

[Grazioso]

I probably already answered this one earlier, but in case I didn't:

Top 3, in the sense of the "best"

LvB
Mahler
Sibelius

Top 3, in the sense of personal favorites, shifts and depends on what I'm listening to atm

Bax
Madetoja
Sibelius

Interesting how few people say Haydn or Mozart, yet they're still usually at the top of a general "top composers" list.

With Mozart, that's understandable since his greatest accomplishments are usually considered to lie in the fields of opera and concerto. While Haydn is probably most esteemed for his quartets and symphonies, the relative neglect of the latter probably stems from the relative neglect of the Classical Era as a whole. While the Romantic idiom very audibly ties into our contemporary musical lingua franca (heard in so much film music, for example), the Classical style (for all its worth and joys) sounds clearly antiquated and is built on different aesthetic values than much of the music that came later.

[Christo]

At present (but no doubt I gave a different answer before) they are:

1. Ralph Vaughan Williams
2. Vagn Holmboe
3. Arnold Cooke & Stanley Bate (too little symphonies recorded of both for a final verdict) 

[Mirror Image]

At present (but no doubt I gave a different answer before) they are:

1. Ralph Vaughan Williams
2. Vagn Holmboe
3. Arnold Cooke & Stanley Bate (too little symphonies recorded of both for a final verdict) 

I'm having a hard time digesting Holmboe's music. I knew you've met the composer personally, so you perhaps have a better grasp of the music than I do. Tell me, in your opinion, what makes Holmboe's music so rewarding for you?

[Christo]

I'm having a hard time digesting Holmboe's music. I knew you've met the composer personally, so you perhaps have a better grasp of the music than I do. Tell me, in your opinion, what makes Holmboe's music so rewarding for you?

Well, its quality.  (Sorry, past midnight here, urged by The Authority to go to bed ...  )

[Grazioso]

I'm having a hard time digesting Holmboe's music. I knew you've met the composer personally, so you perhaps have a better grasp of the music than I do. Tell me, in your opinion, what makes Holmboe's music so rewarding for you?

Fwiw, I'll offer my less-knowledgeable opinion, having heard a good number of his symphonies, but not all of them yet: Holmboe is a bit like a cross between Nielsen and Sibelius, with a strong sense of forward momentum, unity, and textural clarity, as well as a slightly gloomy, mysterious sensibility.

[Lisztianwagner]

Mine:

1. Beethoven
2. Mahler
3. Shostakovich

After that, Brahms, Bruckner, Sibelius, Nielsen and Tchaikovsky.

[Mirror Image]

Fwiw, I'll offer my less-knowledgeable opinion, having heard a good number of his symphonies, but not all of them yet: Holmboe is a bit like a cross between Nielsen and Sibelius, with a strong sense of forward momentum, unity, and textural clarity, as well as a slightly gloomy, mysterious sensibility.

I don't hear Nielsen or Sibelius in Holmboe. In fact, I don't hear anything distinctive or even derivative. I draw a blank each time I listen to his music trying to come up with some kind of conclusion as to what this music is trying to accomplish or express. I've simply given up on his music for now.

[Grazioso]

I don't hear Nielsen or Sibelius in Holmboe. In fact, I don't hear anything distinctive or even derivative. I draw a blank each time I listen to his music trying to come up with some kind of conclusion as to what this music is trying to accomplish or express. I've simply given up on his music for now.

Which symphonies have you heard so far? One of his most accessible, though not necessarily most representative in terms of atmosphere, is No. 3 Sinfonia rustica, which draws on Danish medieval folk music. The first movement:

http://www.youtube.com/v/CjryGcwfKYw

2 and 6 are also on YouTube, fwiw.

His symphonies tend to sound spare, severe, solemn, granitic (shades of Pettersson and perhaps Simpson), though there are certainly moments of tenderness in them, as well as a dignified, restrained lyricism. Based on the ones I've heard (about half so far), this is generally not sunny, smiling music, but none the worse for that. The more I dip into my boxed set of the symphonies, the more I'm rewarded.

[Mirror Image]

Which symphonies have you heard so far? One of his most accessible, though not necessarily most representative in terms of atmosphere, is No. 3 Sinfonia rustica, which draws on Danish medieval folk music. The first movement:

http://www.youtube.com/v/CjryGcwfKYw

2 and 6 are also on YouTube, fwiw.

His symphonies tend to sound spare, severe, solemn, granitic (shades of Pettersson and perhaps Simpson), though there are certainly moments of tenderness in them, as well as a dignified, restrained lyricism. Based on the ones I've heard (about half so far), this is generally not sunny, smiling music, but none the worse for that. The more I dip into my boxed set of the symphonies, the more I'm rewarded.

I own the whole BIS set of symphonies. I've heard them all, but bare in my mind when I listened I spread them out over many months. I wish I could get behind the music as much as you, but I can't. Even that movement, which I didn't even remember, failed to make much of an impression on me. Pettersson is a much more distinctive composer than Holmboe in my opinion. I know Pettersson's music almost as soon as it starts.

[Robert]

I own the whole BIS set of symphonies. I've heard them all, but bare in my mind when I listened I spread them out over many months. I wish I could get behind the music as much as you, but I can't. Even that movement, which I didn't even remember, failed to make much of an impression on me. Pettersson is a much more distinctive composer than Holmboe in my opinion. I know Pettersson's music almost as soon as it starts.

How about 8 & 9

[karlhenning]

Pettersson is a much more distinctive composer than Holmboe in my opinion.

Oh, I differ, indeed I do.

I know Pettersson's music almost as soon as it starts.

So do I, the swifter to direct my ears elsewhere ; )

[Grazioso]

I own the whole BIS set of symphonies. I've heard them all, but bare in my mind when I listened I spread them out over many months. I wish I could get behind the music as much as you, but I can't. Even that movement, which I didn't even remember, failed to make much of an impression on me. Pettersson is a much more distinctive composer than Holmboe in my opinion. I know Pettersson's music almost as soon as it starts.

Different strokes... I would just advise the usual: listen to any piece a few times, try to read up on it, etc. Maybe you'll connect with it eventually, maybe not. Holmboe has grown on me over time. Maybe I should see a doctor... 

Oh, I differ, indeed I do.

So do I, the swifter to direct my ears elsewhere ; )

I love some of Pettersson but will readily admit you have to steel yourself for some of his works: swathes of angry polyphonic pounding are not for everyone!

[madaboutmahler]

Mine:

1. Beethoven
2. Mahler
3. Shostakovich

After that, Brahms, Bruckner, Sibelius, Nielsen and Tchaikovsky.

Won't argue with that Ilaria, exactly the same as mine