Which is the First Big Late Romantic Symphony?

[neoshredder]

What do you consider the first big Late Romantic Symphony? Here is a list of Symphonies from 1840-1879. I'm thinking Liszt's Symphony in 1857 might be the first big one. For the first big Early Romantic Symphony. I'm thinking Schubert's 8th.

Berlioz: - "Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale" (1840)
Mendelssohn - Symphony 2 (1840)
Schumann - Symphony 1 (1841)
Mendelssohn - Symphony 3 (1842)
Berwald - Symphony 3 (1845)
Schumann - Symphony 2 (1846)
Farrenc - Symphony 3 (1847)
Schumann Symphony 3 (1850)
Spohr Symphony 9 (1850)
Schumann Symphony 4 (1851)
Gade Symphony 5 (1852)
Bizet Symphony in C (1854)
Gounod Symphony 1 in D (1855)
Liszt "Dante" Symphony (1857)
Gottschalk Symphony #1 (1859)
Raff: Symphony #1 "To the Fatherland" (1861)
Dvorak: Symphony #1 ''The Bells of Zlonice'' (1865)
Bruckner: Symphony #1 (1865-66)
Rubinstein: Symphony #6 (1866)
Tchaikovsky: Symphony #1 (1866)
Raff: Symphony #3 "In the Forest" (1869)
Raff Symphony 5 (1872)
Tchaikovsky Symphony #2 "Little Russian" (1872)
Bruckner Symphony #2 (1872)
Bruckner Symphony #3 (1873)
Lalo Symphonie Espagnole (1874)
Bruckner Symphony 4 (1874)
Tchaikovsky Symphony #3 "Polish" (1875)
Bruckner Symphony 5 (1876)
Brahms Symphony 1 (1876)
Borodin Symphony 2 (1876)
Brahms Symphony 2 (1877)
Tchaikovsky Symphony 4 (1878)

[Brian]

This just goes to show how arbitrary everything is - when I think of Late Romantic, I tend to think of the voluptuous, hour-long excesses of Mahler, mature Bruckner, Gliere, Rachmaninov, Elgar, Bax, and George Lloyd, but not Tchaikovsky or Dvorak.

So my answer to your question would be Bruckner's Third, and then the main Late Romantic symphony, to my subjective definition, would proceed with Bruckner and Hans Rott.

[kyjo]

but not Tchaikovsky or Dvorak.

Tchaikovsky's symphonies (especially the last three) are definitely late-romantic in my book. So is Dvorak 9. I consider Liszt's Faust and Dante Symphonies to be the first "late-romantic" (I used quotation marks for a reason) symphonies.

[jochanaan]

Has anyone heard Dvorak's Symphony #1?  I've glanced at the score, and it's big--but I've never even heard of a performance, much less a recording.

I would tend to vote for Liszt's Faust Symphony.

[kyjo]

Has anyone heard Dvorak's Symphony #1?  I've glanced at the score, and it's big--but I've never even heard of a performance, much less a recording.

It's big, alright, but it's more mid-romantic than late-romantic, I'd say. There are, perhaps surprisingly, resonances of Bruckner here and there in this work, but it's not as forward-looking as Bruckner. There are also echoes of Schubert in places. It's not a masterpiece (it could have benefitted from some cuts), but certainly not bad for a first symphony. The second symphony is very much in the same style and is a gorgeous work. It's still a tad overlong, though.

[Brian]

Has anyone heard Dvorak's Symphony #1?  I've glanced at the score, and it's big--but I've never even heard of a performance, much less a recording.

It's kind of a clunker, some good ideas but it takes itself very seriously. Dvorak's Symphony #2 is the opposite: just as big, just as long, just as overcomplicated, but a ton of fun. I'd argue that the scherzo and finale of Dvorak's Symphony #2 are the birth of his mature style, because everything's there - the easy melodies, the complex rhythms, the incredibly effective woodwind solos, that "Czech" feeling. In fact, since it was written in 1865 (a few months before "The Bartered Bride" was finished and almost a decade before Smetana started "Ma Vlast"), I think you could make a decent case that the scherzo and finale of Dvorak's Second are the real birth of Czech nationalism in major orchestral music.

Well, except not really, because he lost the score and it was only performed once in his lifetime. 

[DavidW]

This thread seems to be discussing middle Romanticism as if it's late Romanticism.  I take the death of Wagner as the beginning of the twilight of the Romantic Era.  One of the first symphonies to be composed and performed at that time is Bruckner's 7th Symphony.  Late Romanticism is the time in which composers really pushed chromaticism to its limits just prior to Schoenberg et al ushering in Modernism.

[Sergeant Rock]

This thread seems to be discussing middle Romanticism as if it's late Romanticism.

I agree. I don't consider any of the symphonies in neoshredder's list Late Romantic.

Sarge

[DavidW]

Yup I like Brian's list better.

[Sergeant Rock]

Well, he is interested in identifying the first late Romantic symphony.  I kind of think either the Dante or Faust by Liszt would fit the bill.  But I don't have a dog in this hunt.

They were both composed in the mid 1850s (Dante 1855, Faust 1854)...I can't see how they could possibly be considered "late" Romantic. Schumann wasn't even dead yet 

Sarge

[Sammy]

I agree. I don't consider any of the symphonies in neoshredder's list Late Romantic.

Sarge

Same here.  That list is from the heartland of the Romantic period.

[Sergeant Rock]

. I really did not want to get into this kind of thread, as "consider" at the very beginning explains the silliness itself but I don't want you to get lost . I'm personally against this kind of recent constructs but scholarly they are trying to divide romantic music into two, early and late(not early, middle and late). Late is used in a "decline" implied way. There are prerequisites to help you. First, the structure and form must be less important than before. Nationalism and folk music should be on the rise. Self-expression must be at its height(not limit). And to simplify everything at least one Grand Opera by Verdi or Wagner should be composed. This puts the beginning of so-called late romantic period roughly between 1848-1860. Then you should "decide" on a symphony composed roughly between 1850-1860 by a preferably nationalist composer bearing a folksy touch but with impressions of departuring from especially "structure and form"...easy, no?

I can see this thread taking off in an endless argument like the "Was Beethoven a Romantic or Classical composer" threads    It's too late (for me) to begin debating now. But I'll go to bed wondering if there isn't a difference between late Romantic and Late Romantic. There is in my mind anyway. E.g., the Liszt of the Dante Symphony is a late Romantic but the Mahler of the Sixth Symphony is a Late Romantic.

Sarge

[Cato]

music for me ends in 1886 with brahms' 4th 

A most melancholy statement, if meant seriously!

There is in my mind anyway. E.g., the Liszt of the Dante Symphony is a late Romantic but the Mahler of the Sixth Symphony is a Late Romantic.

Sarge

Aye!  If forced to choose, I might go along with Bruckner's Seventh as the "first late Romantic symphony."  The overall trend (in central Europe at least) in the later decades of the 1800's derives from Der Ring.  But there are exceptions.  Thus the Brahms Fourth is a Romantic symphony, but whether one could describe it as either "late" or "Late" (using Sarge's distinction) is highly debatable.

And why is it necessary to define a certain symphony as the "first late Romantic symphony" ?  Is somebody itching for some shillelagh swinging?   

[DavidW]

And why is it necessary to define a certain symphony as the "first late Romantic symphony" ?  Is somebody itching for some shillelagh swinging?   

Just you wait for me to start a thread asking for the last early Romantic symphony!

[jochanaan]

I can see this thread taking off in an endless argument like the "Was Beethoven a Romantic or Classical composer" threads    It's too late (for me) to begin debating now. But I'll go to bed wondering if there isn't a difference between late Romantic and Late Romantic. There is in my mind anyway. E.g., the Liszt of the Dante Symphony is a late Romantic but the Mahler of the Sixth Symphony is a Late Romantic.

Sarge

And we haven't even mentioned "Post-Romantic," a null concept if there ever was one!

[kishnevi]

And which was the First Small Late Romantic Symphony, while we're at it?

To answer the actual question, I'd suggest either Beethoven's Ninth or Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie No. 1.

[jochanaan]

...To answer the actual question, I'd suggest either Beethoven's Ninth or Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie No. 1.

[neoshredder]

I guess I think differently. I think of Romanticism as having 2 different time period.  Approximately 1820-1860 as being the early Romantic part. 1860-1910 approximately being the late Romantic Part.

[dyn]

If one's dividing the Romantic period up into sub-periods one should use historical markers:

1815 (Napoleonic Wars) - conventional start of the period, although proto-Romantic music dates back to 1800 or earlier
1848 (Revolutions in europe)
1871 (Franco-Prussian War)
1918 (First World War)
1945 (Second World War)
1989 (Fall of Soviet Union)

all of which delineate important shifts in Romantic music in several of the countries with which it is typically associated e.g.

1815 - Around the time the early Romantics (Weber, Rossini, Schubert, etc) started to become "mainstream", roughly simultaneous with Beethoven's late music being deemed too experimental and difficult. Period dominated by "fragments"—lieder, piano cycles—programme music, subjectivity, poetry & increased use of harmonies and sounds "for their own sake" rather than the complexity and chromaticism associated with CPE Bach and Mozart. Rise of the first great virtuosos (Paganini, Liszt, Clara Schumann etc)
1848 - Increasing prominence of Liszt and the New German School, & desire to reject the past ideals of sonatas and symphonies; rise of the symphonic poem and opera in German-speaking countries. Nationalism begins to take root across Europe and the United States, leading to the first "great" composers of e.g. Sweden, Russia, Bohemia and other lands desirous of laying claim to a unique musical heritage.
1871 - Increasing prominence of and prestige attached to Austro-German musical heritage (perhaps brought about by nationalistic sentiment after victory against France) leading to "rebirth" of the symphony with Brahms and Bruckner, later Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Sibelius, et cetera. The period most people think of when one mentions Romanticism. This period is essentially the renaissance of orchestral music in Europe and also marks the birth of the epigone.
1918 - Due in part to the devastation of the War and even more so to the sense of having been left behind in the wake of the rise of Modernism, much Romantic music now begins to take on explicitly nostalgic and elegiac characteristics. Elements of Modernism are assimilated by some composers of the period (eg Medtner, Nielsen, Barber) although they rarely if ever predominate. America, having lagged behind and still playing catch-up, experiences its orchestral renaissance, aided by the patronage systems set up during the Great Depression. The rise of the Soviet Union as a world power leads to its commissioning a Romantic legacy of its own more in line with socialist principles (a sort of artificial Romanticism as it were).
1945 - In the West, romanticism is largely seen as in decline, and many composers of romantic music withdraw from public life or feel pressured to "modernise" their style. The style becomes increasingly a vehicle for left-wing thought, explicit or implicit, and many romantic composers become attracted to the idea of composing for the masses, partly under the influence of Shostakovich (the dean of Soviet composers, of whom the romantic ones were the only tolerated variety) and Britten. Increasingly from the 60s on romanticism draws on rock music as a source—comparable to the influence of Johann Strauss on Brahms and aided by the fact that the "outsider" and "social critic" status of rock musicians is something many classical musicians aspire to. With the gradual decline of modernism in the esteem of patrons, romanticism begins to return to the foreground.
1989 - "Rebirth" of romanticism in the USA and its sphere of influence, with American cultural hegemony necessitating the demonstration that America continues to support the arts as strongly as it did in the 1930s. Hence, the composers considered to be direct descendants of the great American romantics of that era (Corigliano/Danielpour/Rouse/Higdon/etc) fall under the patronage of various official American institutions. Meanwhile, though the Soviet Union has fallen, romanticism, particularly the symphonic genre, continues to play an important part in the cultural life of its successor states. In western Europe, meanwhile, the decline continues. This is the sub-period we're in now i suppose.

The Romantic style of the present day would probably be unrecogniseable to Mahler, but then Mahler would be unrecogniseable to Schumann, and certainly the style continues to retain many of the defining features it developed over its history: little to no interest in complex harmonies or counterpoint, fluid tonality (since "first period romanticism"); chromaticism, symphonic poems & programme music (since "second period romanticism"); using past forms in "critical" ways, the symphony as proof of musical craft, and the symphony as vehicle of political aspirations (since "third period romanticism"); rhythmic fluidity and "gentrification" of popular music (since "fourth period romanticism"); unity with film music, and the primacy of accessibility and the audience, sometimes extended to include accessibility to amateur musicians and singers as well, as in the work of Whitacre or Ticheli (since "fifth period romanticism").

i think i have this more or less right with the dates and everything. Of course i could extend backwards to include middle period Beethoven, Dussek, Hummel, Mozart, and CPE Bach... and possibly Gesualdo although he was a stylistic outlier in his time... but whatever :P

to answer the question, sorta -

the first symphonies that were really important to Romantic composers were Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth
the first important symphony written by a Romantic composer was Brahms's First (several of Bruckner's predate it, but he didn't win as much recognition for them; and the symphonies of Berlioz are properly classed as programme music alongside the symphonic poems of Liszt)
the first important "Late Romantic" symphony in the stylistic sense that is still played today is probably Bruckner's Third; and that was influential on contemporary composers, Bruckner's Seventh

[DavidW]

What was the first neoromantic symphony?