Favorite First Symphonies

[Heck148]

I searched the archives, couldn't come up with a thread that addressed this topic....my apologies if my search was insufficient or incomplete -

What are your favorite First Symphonies?? which composers hit the target on their first try?? edit: let's limit it to 3 favorites. if possible...

Lots of candidates, of course - mine are:

Shostakovich - Sym #1
Sibelius - Sym #1
Walton- Sym #1

[springrite]

Mahler for me.

Also Barber and Brahms.

[Florestan]

Haydn
Schumann
Mendelssohn
Berlioz
Tchaikovsky
Sibelius
Mahler
Bruckner
Felix Weingartner
Enescu

[aligreto]

Mahler, Brahms and Sibelius for me.

[relm1]

* Mahler No. 1
* Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony
* Sibelius No. 1
* Brian Gothic

[Sergeant Rock]

Brian Gothic

Brian Gothic
Elgar
Korngold
Mahler
Schmidt

[Scion7]

- Brahms
- Shostakovich
- Berlioz (Symphonie fantastique)
- Barber
- Dohnanyi
- Tchaikovsky
- Draeseke
- Piston
- Suk
- Prokofiev
- Schoenberg (Chamber Symphony Nr.1)
- Scriabin
- Sibelius
- Vaughan-Williams

[North Star]

- Stravinksy (Symphony in 3 Movements)

You forgot Symphony in E-flat major, Op. 1 (1907)

[Scion7]

Ack!  You're correct.  Removing my listing - that's from '45 anyway, lol.

[Mirror Image]

My three favorite first symphonies (in no particular order):

Sibelius
Nielsen
Elgar

Honorable mentions: Roussel, Walton, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bruckner (!!!), Rachmaninov

[Cato]

Off the top of the old cranium...

BRUCKNER!!!  KARL AMADEUS HARTMANN!!!

Then:

Beethoven, Chausson, Ives, Krenek, Mahler, Mehul, Rott, Schoenberg (Chamber Symphony),Scriabin, Sessions, Sibelius, Taneyev, Tchaikovsky, Toch,

[Chronochromie]

Berlioz, Mahler, Schoenberg and Messiaen (excluding here Debussy La Mer and Bartók CfO).

Nielsen, Prokofiev, Webern and Dutilleux are excellent too.

[ludwigii]

Having to choose  my three favorite are those of

Walton
Henze
Shostakovich

in this order.

[Mirror Image]

KARL AMADEUS HARTMANN!!!

I knew I was forgetting someone! Hartmann's 1st is, indeed, something else, but is it really his 1st symphony? According to his oeuvre, it appears that the Symphony L'Oeuvre is his first symphony, but I'm just getting too technical here as Hartmann meant for his Symphony No. 1 to be just that: his first.

[Maestro267]

My favourite First Symphony is Vaughan Williams'. After that, probably Mahler, Walton, Brian, Elgar and Tchaikovsky.

[relm1]

I knew I was forgetting someone! Hartmann's 1st is, indeed, something else, but is it really his 1st symphony? According to his oeuvre, it appears that the Symphony L'Oeuvre is his first symphony, but I'm just getting too technical here as Hartmann meant for his Symphony No. 1 to be just that: his first.

Yeah, I was thinking the same that it isn't very clear what a Symphony No. 1 is in some cases.  Didn't Mahler compose two student symphonies?  Enescu composed 4 proto-symphonies before No. 1.  I know Havergal Brian's Gothic is his Symphony No. 2, but the 1st was dissolved hence the Gothic became No. 1.  The late Steven Stucky said "I myself had written four symphonies before the age of thirty (all of them now withdrawn), but then I turned my back on the idea for another thirty years."  So from some counts, his Symphony No. 1 is his 5th?  I ultimately concluded that whatever is commonly regarded as the No. 1 for that composer qualifies for the purposes of this thread.   

[some guy]

Didn't Mahler compose two student symphonies?

You might be thinking of Bruckner, who wrote four short orchestral pieces and the Studiensymphonie in f while studying with Otto Kitzler.

His symphony in d, often referred to as zero (leaving some wag to call the one in f zero zero), was written after number one, however, and was numbered two, naturally, with the one we now call two called number three, of course.

[Sergeant Rock]

Didn't Mahler compose two student symphonies?

Yes, as a student at the conservatory he wrote a symphony for a competition and another in A minor. Another symphony he worked on prior to his official First was called the Nordische Symphonie. There were manuscripts of four early symphonies in the library of Mahler's close friend and former mistress, the Baroness von Weber, Marion Mathilde. There is anecdotal evidence that Mengelberg saw them and even played them on the piano some twenty years after Mahler's death. They were probably destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945 when fire consumed most of the Baroness's library.

Sarge

[relm1]

Yes, as a student at the conservatory he wrote a symphony for a competition and another in A minor. Another symphony he worked on prior to his official First was called the Nordische Symphonie. There were manuscripts of four early symphonies in the library of Mahler's close friend and former mistress, the Baroness von Weber, Marion Mathilde. There is anecdotal evidence that Mengelberg saw them and even played them on the piano some twenty years after Mahler's death. They were probably destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945 when fire consumed most of the Baroness's library.

Sarge

Yes, thank you!  I remember now.  I recalled they were destroyed like you said during the bombing of Dresden. 

[Mirror Image]

Having to choose  my three favorite are those of

Walton
Henze
Shostakovich

in this order.

Given your affection for the composer who happens to be your avatar, I'm surprised you didn't pick his Symphony No. 1 or do you feel the same way I do about it?