Your 2 or 3 Favorite Symphonies

[Mirror Image]

I got me a playlist...

I've already been listening to 3 twice this week: The new Janowski and the old Rozhdestvensky.  Janowski's slick recording leaves me cold.  The old Soviet recording is surprisingly decent, and Rozhdestvensky really gets this wild music.

So on to the other symphonies.

I know I've listened to this several times, but I don't recall an impression.

Always hard to decide what to listen to among so many symphonies.  21 was popular at one time, and was recorded by Ormandy and Morton Gould.

Pretty familiar with 4 and 5 and somewhat with 6.  17 is subtitled "Memory", and there are two recordings by Fedoseyev.

Sounds more like bad-boy Langgaard the the earlier symphonies I more familiar with.

Don't recall anything about this one.  4 is choral and reminds me of Orff.

My favorite Schnittke 3rd is Eri Klas' on BIS. The Rozhdestvensky is too raw in it's impact and the audio quality doesn't help matters either. I don't really have much of an on the Jurowski performance other than I didn't really find it too inspiring and the performance just felt kind of ho-hum. Holmboe's 3rd has those folk elements which I just love in his early works, but those influences, including Bartok, really come to the fore in this symphony. There are three performances of Casella's 3rd, but the best one IMHO is on CPO with Alun Francis conducting the Cologne Radio SO. Not to be missed.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I don't understand this, either.

Actually amw's objection makes perfect sense, both in terms of the original question and all the replies. Daverz encapsulates it:
"Symphonies are my favorite non-concertante, absolute, multi-movement, orchestral music." Amw's point is to question the pre-eminence of the symphony over other genres that may be of equal or greater value. Back in the early days when Haydn was first starting to write symphonies, they were nothing more than sonatas for slightly larger ensembles. Then in the 19th century the symphony started to assume the monumentality and grandiosity that Virgil Thomson debunked as evidence of the "masterpiece syndrome" and the "music appreciation racket." By Mahler's time symphonies (not to mention such successors as Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony, with its six pairs of cymbals when five would have sufficed) had become longer, louder, more grandiose, and called for larger performing forces than virtually any other form of music.

Case in point: I was asked to recommend recordings of the Schumann symphonies by someone who wanted to know this composer. When I mildly pointed out that Schumann's greatest individuality is found in his piano works and song cycles, my acquaintance was undeterred. Symphonies are where it's at, he insisted, and symphonies are all he wanted to know.

[Wanderer]

Actually amw's objection makes perfect sense...

I know. I was not objecting to it, I was agreeing to it. I find the fetishisation of the symphony - when it happens at the expense of other genres as your example shows - quite bemusing.

And thanks for the write-up, all very true.

[Marc]

Can I pick 3?
Yes, I can.
3 pieces who aren't probably (even in my own opinion) the BEST, but I've got a special relationship with them.

Tchaikovsky 6 "Pathétique": I recall hearing parts of one of its first movement themes for the first time. It was in a movie with Bette Davis (Now, Voyager). After that I plundered my dad's modest vinyl collection, couldn't find the piece, and only after a year or so I recognized the melody when listening to a budget-priced album I just bought myself (Wiener Phil, Lorin Maazel). Then I enjoyed the 5/4 measured 2nd movement, got extremely excited whilst listening to the 3rd en was completely blown away after the Finale. I was devastated. But the entire experience was a true catharsis. I've underwent the experience quite some times after that, also live, and it has remained an overwhelming one.

Schubert 8 "Unvollendete": the first album I bought with my own money (Philharmonia Orchestra, Giuseppe Sinopoli) after reading in a Dutch novel that this work was inspired by the Holy Spirit far more than the entire Bible. I had just seen a tv series about Schubert's life and the man quickly rose to fame in my book.

Mozart 34: because the 1st and 3rd movement really put me in an excellent mood. And the 2nd movement made (and makes) me think of the girl I fell in love with during my last highschool years. And even though I already began shaking within a distance of a mile from her, the memory of her is still a memory of beauty.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I know. I was not objecting to it, I was agreeing to it. I find the fetishisation of the symphony - when it happens at the expense of other genres as your example shows - quite bemusing.

Ah. I took your comment the other way, i.e., to mean, "I don't understand what amw is saying either," instead of "I don't understand this fetishisation [as you nicely put it] myself."

[TheGSMoeller]

It is difficult to pin down three that I would consider my favorite, so I'll choose the ones that I've been listening to, or have been enjoying the longest. More of a nostalgia thing.

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique - One of my all timers, also one of my favorite works to see performed live. I have at times considered Harold in Italy to be a better piece, but fantastique always has room at the top.
Brahms: Symphony No.3 - May not contain the drama or excitement of the other three from Brahms, but it's the most beautiful and lyrical, and to me that's when he's at his best.
Mahler - Symphony No.3 - I've been having a love/hate relationship with Mahler the past 10 years, but anytime I listen to his third I remember back to a time, starting in high school, when I thought this was the greatest piece ever composed.

[USMC1960s]

Thanks for all your responses. Very helpful. When someone pointed out a day or so ago that the Polling section might be a better place for this, I agreed. And the title there would have been "Your Favorite Symphonies", with no number limit, which I realized later (too late) unnecessarily narrowed the field, and made no real sense. Why should anyone list their top THREE favorite anything, except as an arbitrary exercise in listing things.

[flyingdutchman]

Manfred--Tchaikovsky
8th--Dvorak
3rd--Sibelius
3rd--Brahms
1st--Tchaikovsky