Recommend Me Some 20th Century 'Pastoral' Symphonies

[snyprrr]

I'm going on from Honegger's 4th, Milhaud's 1-2,... I just NEED something lazy, summery,...mm...I don't know, the Milhaud are pretty nap inducing,... perhaps summer nap Symphonies? Some of the Segerstam samples I've heard make for nice nap music, but I don't know if there're violent outbursts or not (don't think so, but...).

I don't want to call Gorescki's 3rd 'pastoral', but, perhaps a 'happy' Gorecki 3rd might be what I'm looking for?... just something 'smooth', something of country fields in the summer...

[Sergeant Rock]

Frederick Delius, Symphony #3 A major "The Cowpat"

Sarge

[KeithW]

Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3?

[pjme]

Laszlo Lajtha: Symphony nr . 4: Le printemps - lovely. A Hungarian pastoral "à la française"

Erkki Melartin: Symphony nr 4: Summer
The slow movement of nr. 4 ( 3 female voices in "vocalise") is just exquisite.

Symphony No. 4, Summer Symphony (1912): This was the favorite with concert audiences in Melartin's own day, and perhaps still is the favorite with listeners. A gem-like the second movement, Scherzo (Vivace), tells why. Play this movement if you want to make someone a fan of Melartin. It is an exuberant distillation of at least one aspect of the northern summer, like sunlight made audible. To my mind the third movement adds an element of wistfulness (the northerners' consciousness that winter is coming?) before a soloist and then three female voices together enter the work.

Raihala's essay for Finnish Music Quarterly magazine says the "Summer Hymn" that helps anchor the symphony is actually a melody of Swedish origin, though familiar to all Finns. It helps make this symphony a beautiful product of National Romanticism. If you like the voices in the second movement of Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 3, you'll love the singing in Melartin's No. 4, which seems to me similar in spirit. This may be one of his most visual works. At least the Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja, in his review of the Melartin Symphony No. 4, focused on the visual qualities of the music: "Seldom has the summer nature, its limpid, delicate landscapes, the hushed piety of the white summer night been described with such delightful and confident strokes of the brush."

-- Lance Nixon, MusicWeb International

A glorious summer's day in Croatia: Sunny fields by Blagoje Bersa, not a symphony but a symphonic poem where Mahler, Strauss and Respighi come together in a stunning evocation of a sundrenched landscape (anno 1919).

Arthur Meulemans: May night . Flemish impressionism at its best.
P.

[Lethevich]

Tournemire - Symphony No.5

[eyeresist]

Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3?

And 5, of course.

[snyprrr]

Laszlo Lajtha: Symphony nr . 4: Le printemps - lovely. A Hungarian pastoral "à la française"

Erkki Melartin: Symphony nr 4: Summer
The slow movement of nr. 4 ( 3 female voices in "vocalise") is just exquisite.

Symphony No. 4, Summer Symphony (1912): This was the favorite with concert audiences in Melartin's own day, and perhaps still is the favorite with listeners. A gem-like the second movement, Scherzo (Vivace), tells why. Play this movement if you want to make someone a fan of Melartin. It is an exuberant distillation of at least one aspect of the northern summer, like sunlight made audible. To my mind the third movement adds an element of wistfulness (the northerners' consciousness that winter is coming?) before a soloist and then three female voices together enter the work.

Raihala's essay for Finnish Music Quarterly magazine says the "Summer Hymn" that helps anchor the symphony is actually a melody of Swedish origin, though familiar to all Finns. It helps make this symphony a beautiful product of National Romanticism. If you like the voices in the second movement of Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 3, you'll love the singing in Melartin's No. 4, which seems to me similar in spirit. This may be one of his most visual works. At least the Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja, in his review of the Melartin Symphony No. 4, focused on the visual qualities of the music: "Seldom has the summer nature, its limpid, delicate landscapes, the hushed piety of the white summer night been described with such delightful and confident strokes of the brush."

-- Lance Nixon, MusicWeb International

A glorious summer's day in Croatia: Sunny fields by Blagoje Bersa, not a symphony but a symphonic poem where Mahler, Strauss and Respighi come together in a stunning evocation of a sundrenched landscape (anno 1919).

Arthur Meulemans: May night . Flemish impressionism at its best.
P.

What about Nielsen's 6th?

And 5, of course.

I was going to exclude that as being too 'Epic', haha!!

[snyprrr]

Frederick Delius, Symphony #3 A major "The Cowpat"

Sarge

Haha, I probably should recoup some Delius,... you might have hit on it! Perhaps I just didn't want to Thread the word 'Impressionism', but, that IS what I crave here, isn't it? Seriously 'subjective' Impressionism, haha,... I remember a previous Thread of Discontent, haha...

[Coco]

Tubin's 4th

[Christo]

Tubin 4
Braga Santos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
Holmboe 3
Madetoja 2, 3
Nielsen 3
Hurun 1
Vaughan Williams 3, 5
Moeran 1
Rawsthorne 2
Lilburn 1, 2
Honegger 4
Röntgen 8
Raid 1
Meulemans 8
&c.

[snyprrr]

Tubin 4
Braga Santos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
Holmboe 3
Madetoja 2, 3
Nielsen 3
Hurun 1
Vaughan Williams 3, 5
Moeran 1
Rawsthorne 2
Lilburn 1, 2
Honegger 4
Röntgen 8
Raid 1
Meulemans 8
&c.

Ah, thanks!

[Sergeant Rock]

Haha, I probably should recoup some Delius,...

That seems to be the kind of music you're looking for. Delius (unlike most of the symphonies suggested in this thread) maintains a mood for the length of the work. Try his On Stepping on the First Cowpat in Spring....I think that was the title 

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

His scoring is the most realistic squish you'll ever hear!

[Opus106]

[Delius] maintains a mood for the length of the work.

Sarge

I was thinking along those lines yesterday. The suggested works by Delius of this 'mood' perhaps all last around 10-20 minutes or less. Could a composer really maintain the same mood (in various shades, let's say) for the length of a symphony? (Labelling your 10-minute piece a symphony is, of course, cheating.  )

[Mirror Image]

I was thinking along those lines yesterday. The suggested works by Delius of this 'mood' perhaps all last around 10-20 minutes or less. Could a composer really maintain the same mood (in various shades, let's say) for the length of a symphony? (Labelling your 10-minute piece a symphony is, of course, cheating.  )

The closest thing Delius came to composing a symphony was A Song of the High Hills. If you don't know it, do become acquinted with it. Lovely work.

[Opus106]

The closest thing Delius came to composing a symphony was A Song of the High Hills. If you don't know it, do become acquinted with it. Lovely work.

Thanks.

[Christo]

Try his On Stepping on the First Cowpat in Spring....I think that was the title 

Summer Night on the Bare Cowpat. The Walk to the Cowpat Paradise. 

[Sergeant Rock]

Summer Night on the Bare Cowpat. The Walk to the Cowpat Paradise. 

North Cowpat Sketches.

Over the Cowpat and Far Away.

He wrote a million of 'em 

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

A Mass of Cowpat

[vandermolen]

Tubin 4
Braga Santos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
Holmboe 3
Madetoja 2, 3
Nielsen 3
Hurun 1
Vaughan Williams 3, 5
Moeran 1
Rawsthorne 2
Lilburn 1, 2
Honegger 4
Röntgen 8
Raid 1
Meulemans 8
&c.

Like all these + Armstrong Gibbs: Symphony 3 'Westmorland', Crossley-Holland: Symphony, Rubbra: Symphony 5: Bax: Symphony 3 (wonderful end section), Ives: Symphony 3, Sibelius: Symphony 6, Miaskovsky Symphony 5, Moyzes: Symphony 7, Nystroem: Sinfonia Del Mare.