Single symphony

Started by André, September 10, 2017, 09:25:57 AM

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kyjo

Quote from: vandermolen on September 12, 2017, 12:08:17 AM
Alf Hurum's Symphony which is a wonderful work.

Agreed, Jeffrey. I treasure that Simax CD that includes his Symphony along with his String Quartet and tone poem Bendik and Arolilja. It's a pity he composed so little music.
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

André

Quote from: Cato on September 11, 2017, 10:31:04 AM
Louis Vierne composed six large symphonies for organ, but only one for the symphony orchestra: a wonderful work, but... you knew that!  8)


[asin]B0000285FK[/asin]


On YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/v/WmFEN1xtf6I

Also available in the 50-disc Liège Philharmonic box, which I have plugged championed many times on GMG  ;D

.............................................................

Thanks, Jeffrey for mentioning the Colour Symphony. This is probably one of the best works in the genre out there. Very strong symphony from an extremely fine composer (love his choral music, too).

pjme

Quote from: The new erato on September 12, 2017, 04:31:57 AM
Frank Martin has one, fine, symphony.

Wonderful work, indeed. The use of two piano's is stirring .




André

It's so taken for granted that nobody has yet mentioned the maiden effort of 17 year old Georges Bizet!

Multiple dozens of recordings exist. Practically every french/belgian/swiss conductor of note had a go or two at it. It is as charming, exhilarating, frothy, saucy and melodious as Prokofiev's first symphony, "Classical" (they are sometimes coupled together, with good reason).

* There is a "sort of" second symphony in the form of Roma his "Fantaisie symphonique: souvenirs de Rome" (that's how it was described at the 1869 première). It is variously described as "symphony" or "suite" on the extant discs on the market.

starrynight

Fairly amazed nobody mentioned Arriaga.

pjme

#25
Browsing through my cd's I found this:

https://www.youtube.com/v/zyZKhGoJE9o

Impressive! Three movements : Intrada - Capriccio - Ode .
Boston SO conducted by Fine himself. The rest of the program was done by Leinsdorf.

From the ASO's website:http://americansymphony.org/irving-fine-symphony-1962/


Born December 3, 1914, in Boston
Died August 23, 1962, in Boston

Composed in 1962 in Boston on commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Premiered on March 23, 1962 in Boston by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch
Performance Time: Approximately 22 minutes

Irving Fine was born, educated, taught, and died in Boston. His childhood was miserable on a Mahlerian scale: his parents were an ill-matched and quarrelsome pair. As musicologist Howard Pollack has noted, there are numerous depictions of parents throughout his work. Some are chilling, some ironic, but few are benign. Unsurprisingly, this led Fine to seek out father figures, including Walter Piston, his teacher at Harvard, and Igor Stravinsky, whom he met in 1939. He found a loyal friend in Aaron Copland, with whom he taught at Tanglewood.

Given the circumstances of his early life, it is unsurprising that Fine cultivated a certain detachment in both his personality and his music. Piston, who combined reserve with rectitude, may have provided a model for Fine in this regard. (Piston resigned from the Harvard Musical Association in 1948 when one of its members blackballed Fine's nomination because he was Jewish.) Fine became disenchanted with Piston's music by the late 1950s, however, writing that his erstwhile teacher's scores "no longer offers us any surprises."

No such reservations marred his admiration for Stravinsky. This affection was only intensified by Fine's study with Nadia Boulanger, who was the Russian composer's most ardent and loyal champion. Indeed, the objectivity of Stravinsky's neo-classical aesthetic had a profound and lasting influence on Fine's music. Like Stravinsky, Fine was often drawn to droll subjects: one of Fine's beloved scores in the repertory today is his witty Three Choruses from Alice in Wonderland for chorus and piano (1942).

Fine began to compose using Schoenberg's "twelve-tone technique" slightly before Stravinsky began his own exploration of this method in 1951. Fine was never doctrinaire, however, and his serialized music evinces an admirable independence of thought. Fine's late Symphony (1962) represents the culmination of his style in the directness of the opening movement, the Stravinskian wit of the second, and the unremitting tragedy of the finale. Sadly, Fine died of a massive coronary thrombosis at the age of forty-seven just eleven days after conducting the Symphony at Tanglewood.

Three recordings :




André

Irving Fine''s symphony is a beauty. I have the first 2 discs you show. Will look for the other one (thanks for that!). Fine also composed Blue Towers, a racy little orchestral piece that stubbornly refuses to leave the mind after hearing it. It's on 2 of those discs.

pjme

I had completely forgotten this symphony by Irving Fine. Reading comments on GMG helps to go back.
It is indeed a strong work (in a language I like). Will look out for Blue towers.
P.

André

Blue Towers is on a few Youtube clips.

It seems to be popular with student or 'regional' orchestras. Its 3 minutes' duration won't strain anyone's patience  :D

Cato

Quote from: pjme on September 14, 2017, 07:12:22 AM
I had completely forgotten this symphony by Irving Fine. Reading comments on GMG helps to go back.
It is indeed a strong work (in a language I like). Will look out for Blue towers.
P.

Yes indeed!

Not to be forgotten, although it might appear in some of the longer lists already submitted: Kodaly's only symphony!

https://www.youtube.com/v/MUZuhU87yiU
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Christo

Quote from: Cato on September 14, 2017, 07:57:47 AMNot to be forgotten, although it might appear in some of the longer lists already submitted: Kodaly's only symphony!
Quote from: Christo on September 10, 2017, 10:54:54 AMSingle symphonies by:
* Ludvig Irgens Jensen
* Arthur Benjamin
* Alf Hurum
* Zoltán Kodály
Actually, I find it weaker than much of his orchestral output before; indeed the Concerto for Orchestra and Theatre Overture are in some sense more 'symphonic' than the symphony.
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

kyjo

Perhaps it's no earth-shattering masterpiece, but I really enjoy the Kodaly Symphony. The slow movement is very atmospheric and the rollicking finale has an obstinately catchy main theme.
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Ken B

Quote from: André on September 13, 2017, 05:00:53 AM
It's so taken for granted that nobody has yet mentioned the maiden effort of 17 year old Georges Bizet!

Multiple dozens of recordings exist. Practically every french/belgian/swiss conductor of note had a go or two at it. It is as charming, exhilarating, frothy, saucy and melodious as Prokofiev's first symphony, "Classical" (they are sometimes coupled together, with good reason).

* There is a "sort of" second symphony in the form of Roma his "Fantaisie symphonique: souvenirs de Rome" (that's how it was described at the 1869 première). It is variously described as "symphony" or "suite" on the extant discs on the market.

I mentioned Bizet.

André

Hi Ken, sorry for the oversight!  ;)

....................................................

I hadn't listened to this in a long while:



Otto Olsson's symphony from 1902 is of brucknerian length: 57 minutes, with a 23 minutes Adagio. That movement is simply one of the most beautiful I have heard, a long elegy where time suspends its flight - to quote Lamartine. The 23 year old composer clearly had lots to say. The whole thing is a bit of an omnium-gatherum, but it endears itself on the listener. It actually picks up strength as it proceeds. Until the end of that adagio, that is. I can't imagine a last movement that would do this beauty justice.

Karl Henning

Quote from: kyjo on September 14, 2017, 02:15:49 PM
Perhaps it's no earth-shattering masterpiece, but I really enjoy the Kodaly Symphony. The slow movement is very atmospheric and the rollicking finale has an obstinately catchy main theme.

Whether or not this is strictly parenthetical in the present thread . . . nothing wrong with deep admiration for even that music whose ambition is not to shatter the earth  8)
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

some guy

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 15, 2017, 06:30:27 AM
Whether or not this is strictly parenthetical in the present thread . . . nothing wrong with deep admiration for even that music whose ambition is not to shatter the earth  8)
The following IS strictly parenthetical:

I understand and appreciate the sentiment. Indeed, it is a sentiment I have been at some pains over the years to promote.

But I have recently been spending more time listening to music on youtube. And so I've been increasingly put off by things like those things labelled "MUST HEAR." Not that I had any illusions, but now I see "MUST HEAR," and I know that that particular piece can safely remain unheard.

I'm still tightly holding on to the philosophical premise with both hands, but I must say my philosophy has really been taking a beating at the hands of all the must hear folks as well as a plethora of others not so labelled but still pretty awful. And by awful I mean clumsy and gawky and amateurish--clunky and deeply embarrassing music that makes Dvorak's fourth sound like the height of sophistication and variety, that makes Ives' first sound like an utterly surprising and unpredictable journey.

I like both of those, too, by the way, but I wouldn't profess to any deep admiration for either of them. Nor for all the Kallinikov and Ippolitov-Ivanov or Larssen that I enjoy. I have felt many times over the years and many times on this very thread that I'm in the very coolest restaurant in Paris with the most extensive wine cellar surrounded by people waxing rhapsodic over glasses of water. And not just any water, but tepid water at that. But, since water has many virtues, I'm going to alter this analogy a bit and say that the people around me are waxing rhapsodic over cheap Gallo wines. (How did those get to Paris??) And I'm not so sure that a lot of the music I've been clicking on at youtube even comes up to that level. But seriously. There is a lot of really fine wine in the world. I think there's a lot of virtue in trying everything as one develops a palate. I also think there's a lot to be said for a spirit of adventure, generally. But drinking cheap wine and listening to UnsungMasterworks' MUST HEAR pieces does not qualify as adventurous in my book. It qualifies very definitely as safety, as the intellectual and aesthetic laziness that insists on the utterly familiar and comfortable at any cost.

So sure, be warm and cozy if you will. I like a bit of coze myself from time to time, but please let's not talk about Korngold or Hermann as if they were the best thing since sliced bread. They're not. I'm not even so sure that sliced bread is all THAT wonderful. :)

Here's a wee bit adventure--I'm guessing I've lost my audience completely, anyway, so have nothing to lose:

https://soundcloud.com/fragment-factory/gregory-buettner-tonarm-p-s-1?in=fragment-factory/sets/gregory-buttner-tonarm-ps-cs-excerpts-frag42

Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

some guy

Hahaha, good one, Karl!

Though I'm not convinced that that is a very good example of warmth or coziness....

It is pretty, but it's got some strange little quirks to it, like all your stuff has. It's not so much a down comforter as it is a nice soft, furry cat.

Yeah. You get the idea. ;D

Cato

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 15, 2017, 11:42:14 AM
Okay!

https://www.youtube.com/v/V-KeuEdIL4U

Quote from: some guy on September 15, 2017, 11:54:16 AM
Hahaha, good one, Karl!

Though I'm not convinced that that is a very good example of warmth or coziness....

It is pretty, but it's got some strange little quirks to it, like all your stuff has. It's not so much a down comforter as it is a nice soft, furry cat.

Yeah. You get the idea. ;D

Things Like Bliss has nothing to do with Sir Arthur!   8)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

kyjo

Quote from: André on September 14, 2017, 05:02:55 PM
Hi Ken, sorry for the oversight!  ;)

....................................................

I hadn't listened to this in a long while:



Otto Olsson's symphony from 1902 is of brucknerian length: 57 minutes, with a 23 minutes Adagio. That movement is simply one of the most beautiful I have heard, a long elegy where time suspends its flight - to quote Lamartine. The 23 year old composer clearly had lots to say. The whole thing is a bit of an omnium-gatherum, but it endears itself on the listener. It actually picks up strength as it proceeds. Until the end of that adagio, that is. I can't imagine a last movement that would do this beauty justice.

Sounds intriguing, Andre. Thanks for the recommendation :)
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff