The Worst Last!

[Karl Henning]

I can only think that all the enthusiasm for Telemann here is encouraging him . . . .

[SymphonicAddict]

Agree with you about the Atterberg 9th. It's an interesting work which strikes out in new directions, but it's hardly as successful as his previous symphonies. As for the Nielsen, it's not among my favorite of his symphonies, but I feel that I haven't given it enough attentive listening to fully uncover its secrets. Other possible candidates for me are Mendelssohn's 5th and Hanson's 7th.

Definitely, Nielsen's 6th deserves more attention and understanding.

Are you taking the Mendelssohn in chronological order or in numbered one? In numbered order, the Reformation would be my choice as well, though there are certain nice moments.

[andolink]

Vagn Holmboe is, for me, a composer who went into serious decline in the final 15 years or so of his career and his 13th Symphony is as good an example as any of that. 

So much of his later music seems to be an an endless recycling of the rhythms, harmonies and structural ideas he had already worked to death years earlier.  The final 8 or 9 of his string quartets are, to me, now unlistenable for that reason.

[Jo498]

Other possible candidates for me are Mendelssohn's 5th and Hanson's 7th.

The Mendelssohn "5th" is actually his second (apart from the string symphonies) and was not deemed worthy of publication by the composer, so it is not really a "last symphony". I quite like it despite its obvious problems (almost negligible middle movements that don't really fit with the reformation theme of the outer movements). Probably he should have reworked it into a shorter ouverture or tone poem based on the choral themes.