# Adjective Game: Symphony Edition



## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Simple prompt for this thread, we match the adjectives with the symphonies we feel it describes. To up the ante and force discussion I am including "most" in front of my adjectives. Use my or any other adjectives you wish.

For example,

Most Noble: Beethoven 3
Most Charming: Mozart 38
Most Cheerful: Haydn 101
Most Thorough: Brahms 4
Most Lilting: Sibelius 6
Most Bombastic: Shostakovich 5
Most Creepy: Mahler 4
Most Forceful: Bruckner 5
Most Stirring: Schumann 2


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

bz3 said:


> Simple prompt for this thread, we match the adjectives with the symphonies we feel it describes. To up the ante and force discussion I am including *"most"* in front of my adjectives. Use my or any other adjectives you wish.


I misread that as "moist".


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## ViatorDei (May 19, 2016)

Most glorious: Mahler's 2nd
Most dramatic: Mahler's 6th
Bleakest: Sibelius's 4th
Most exuberant: Beethoven's 7th
Most solemn: Bruckner's 5th
Most cosmic: Bruckner's 9th
Most nocturnal: Mahler's 7th
Greatest: Bruckner's 8th

Cheers! =)


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## Guest (Aug 29, 2016)

For the good Doctor above...
Most *moist*: Schumann's _*Rheinish*_ Symphony!!


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## Guest (Aug 29, 2016)

Actually, here's another *most moist* symphony: *Hovhaness*, Symphony N° 47 - _Walla Walla, Land of Many Waters_.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Mahler 4 is creepy?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Most heart-wrenching: Alfvén - Symphony No. 4 in C minor, "Fran Havsbandet"

Silliest: Messiaen - Turangalîla-symphonie

Most barbaric: Pärt - Symphony No. 3

Most Beethovenesque: Ries - all of them (1 - 8)

Eeriest: Vaughan-Williams - No. 7, "Sinfonia Antartica"

Well, I'm tired now. It has taken me four edits to spell Vaughan-Williams.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Thank goodness another list .:devil:


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Weston said:


> Most heart-wrenching: Alfvén - Symphony No. 4 in C minor, "Fran Havsbandet"
> 
> Silliest: Messiaen - Turangalîla-symphonie
> 
> ...


I'm afraid the hyphen doesn't belong there. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Most like a look of surprise: Bruckner's "00"


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Same symphony - different adjectives

Sweet










Opulent










Heroic










Sublime










Ethnic


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## BoggyB (May 6, 2016)

Most underrated: Bruckner 6

As far as moistness/wetness goes, there's always the Scene by the Brook from the other "B6".


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Bleakest symphony is a play-off between Sibelius 4 and Arnold 8.
Most energetic? Beethoven 7 gets my vote.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Most energetic? Prokofiev 3
Most colorful? Bliss _A Colour Symphony_
Most ebulliently cheerful? D'Indy _Symphony on a French Mountain Air_
Most harrowing? Shostakovich 5


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## Rhombic (Oct 28, 2013)

Dullest? Haydn 3


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## ViatorDei (May 19, 2016)

Most war-like: Shostakovich 4
Most grandiose: Mahler 8
Most overplayed: Beethoven 5
Most brilliant: Mozart 41


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Most flatulent: Mozart 18
Most spongy: Haydn 39
Most green: Schuman 1
Most S&M: Bax 2
Most supine: Arnold 3


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## Adam Weber (Apr 9, 2015)

Sibelius's 4th _would_ be a shoe-in for bleakest if Schnittke hadn't gone off the deep end somewhere around Symphony No. 6. :tiphat:

Oh, and then there's Allan Pettersson...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

The all-Mahler edition (without superlatives)!

Symphony No. 1 - sylvan
Symphony No. 2 - apocalyptic
Symphony No. 3 - universal
Symphony No. 4 - bittersweet
Symphony No. 5 - striving
Symphony No. 6 - collapsing
Symphony No. 7 - extrovert
Symphony No. 8 - transfigurative
Das Lied von der Erde - personal
Symphony No. 9 - otherworldly
Symphony No. 10 - transformative


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## CVM (Apr 2, 2012)

Most Most - Havergal Brian's 'Gothic'


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

bz3 said:


> Simple prompt for this thread, we match the adjectives with the symphonies we feel it describes. To up the ante and force discussion I am including "most" in front of my adjectives. Use my or any other adjectives you wish.
> 
> For example,
> 
> ...


I am not intimate enough with Mahler 4, to have gotten 'creepy' out of it. Mahler's music definitely does have an eerie dark streak though in his apparently happier moments, like you can just sense the emotional collapse underneath(to me it is a characteristic that both Wagner and Tchaikovsky seem to have as well, a sort of removed happiness in a deep imagination that speaks of the menace of what's outside itself). That's how I currently understand these things anyways, if I get into the adjective fancy.

I liked your post because Schumann 2 is really really stirring. Mozart 38 and charming...hmm...it is certainly among some top in that respect, but why more so than 35, 36, or 33(particularly that finale?).

I think Shostakovich 5 is more than bombastic. It is deceptive. The 4th is the great boast and deep inner workings of a deception, and the 5th is the duplicitous one, bombastic on the surface which can cause one to take for granted the simple economy.

And yes, Beethoven 3 is a work of great character. It is a high point of humanity, it's not hard to exalt it if you feel the fancy.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

ViatorDei said:


> Most war-like: Shostakovich 4
> Most grandiose: Mahler 8
> Most overplayed: Beethoven 5
> Most brilliant: Mozart 41


Shosty 4 is a hard one to really wrap your head around. So fierce and unraveled, so dark, weirdly prophetic, overdone with extreme earnestness. Can one really emotionally afford to write more works of that emotional magnitude(I'm not speaking of greatness, which is a fuzzy thing for me, just how insane and raw this piece is), let alone the times he was living in that caused him dial it back and have different strategies(or something) forever more afterwards? Maybe Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz is a similar 'soul vomit' that just can't be repeated.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> The all-Mahler edition (without superlatives)!
> 
> Symphony No. 1 - sylvan
> Symphony No. 2 - apocalyptic
> ...


Mahlerian, I'm curious why 2 is apocalyptic? It's been a while since I heard it all the way through. 3 is totally 'a universe in a symphony.

Also, I am just starting to get into the 7th. It is a cool piece, has a different umph to it. Extrovert surprises me, because I think of things as frank or at least robust, being associated with extroversion and they are not qualities that have jumped out at me in my sampling of yet. I will have to listen more.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Rhombic said:


> Dullest? Haydn 3


Don't be so hard on Haydn three. Try Michael Haydn, Abel or Krommer symphonies if there absolutely must be dull symphonies that we still know about(and have been recorded) from so long ago.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Most fishy: 




I think the adjective applies (I mean, just listen to this sly dog), but it pertains to a personal thing that I have not let go of after 5 years. I had this piece running through my head as I was lulling into sleep in public transit (the days when I took lots more naps for any reason), and at a key part, the famous portrait that was thought to be WF Bach by some(it is in fact not, but some other non composing Bach relative), literally handed me a fish in a little snapshot of a dream. Maybe I needed help. Maybe I still do.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> Mahlerian, I'm curious why 2 is apocalyptic? It's been a while since I heard it all the way through. 3 is totally 'a universe in a symphony.
> 
> Also, I am just starting to get into the 7th. It is a cool piece, has a different umph to it. Extrovert surprises me, because I think of things as frank or at least robust, being associated with extroversion and they are not qualities that have jumped out at me in my sampling of yet. I will have to listen more.


Well, being relatively literal, the finale of 2 actually does reflect an "apocalypse" scene.

As for the Seventh, I was thinking about the way the work turns outward from the darkness of dusk to the broad strokes of the finale. It is a very complex work, true, which is associated with introversion, but the complexities are different from the labyrinthine forms of the Sixth and the interconnected motifs of the Fifth.


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## ArgumentativeOldGit (May 4, 2014)

I like a good tragic symphony myself...

Most jump-in-front-of-train symphony: Brahms 4
Most slash-yer-wrists symphony: Tchaikovsky 6
Most put-yer-head-in-gas-oven symphony: Mahler 6
Most throw-yereself-off-a-cliff symphony: Sibelius 4
Most get-loyalty-card-for-Dignitas symphony: Vaughan Williams 4


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Mahlerian said:


> The all-Mahler edition (without superlatives)!
> 
> Symphony No. 1 - sylvan
> Symphony No. 2 - apocalyptic
> ...


Mahlerian, these are almost precisely exactly the adjectives that I would have used. However, though I am only a modest Totenfeier and not a full-fledeged Mahlerian, a question: the 7th - extrovert? In the final movement, yes indeed. I, however, sense some sensitive introversion in the rest of the symphony, _n'cest pas_?


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

clavichorder said:


> I am not intimate enough with Mahler 4, to have gotten 'creepy' out of it. Mahler's music definitely does have an eerie dark streak though in his apparently happier moments, like you can just sense the emotional collapse underneath(to me it is a characteristic that both Wagner and Tchaikovsky seem to have as well, a sort of removed happiness in a deep imagination that speaks of the menace of what's outside itself). That's how I currently understand these things anyways, if I get into the adjective fancy.
> 
> I liked your post because Schumann 2 is really really stirring. Mozart 38 and charming...hmm...it is certainly among some top in that respect, but why more so than 35, 36, or 33(particularly that finale?).
> 
> ...


Mahler 4 has always been a strange work to me, from the start where the bells fade into the bright theme that seems to ever-fade into sadness and to the end with the even creepier song-based final movement. The rapidly changing moods as the symphony progresses, not to mention the subject matter of the final movement's song, make it all rather creepy to me. I don't expect everyone to feel that way - some people think it's pastoral. Perhaps Mahlerian's "bittersweet" adjective is better, but as far as creepy symphonies go for me it's the creepiest.

As for Mozart, maybe charming would work better in others. If I would re-do my list I'd have Mozart's Prague Symphony as the "most spritely." Charming is kind of a more subjective concept in any case. There are real human beings who find Beyonce charming, after all (or so I'm told).


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Mahler 4 is also the epitome of creepiness to me, so you're not alone. I think it's... _ambivalent_, in the original Freudian meaning of the word, i.e. a primitive, undifferentiated feeling that consists of both tenderness and hatred.


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

Most longing: Elgar 2


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