# An experiment



## Whistlerguy (May 26, 2010)

If you were given five first movements, five second movements, five third and five fourth movements of five different symphonies unknown to you (and you don't know which movement belongs to which symphony), do you think you would be able to correctly assemble five complete symphonies out of these movements?

I mean would you be able to predict or even known for sure which movements belong to which symphony?


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

I think I probably could if they were all by different composers.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

If the 5 symphonies consisted of one work by, say, Haydn, Bruckner, Penderecki, Glass and Branca each, then I'd have a great chance.

If the 5 symphonies were all by the same composer or composers from similar periods (Haydn & Mozart or Mahler & Bruckner), then I'd have a very slim chance.

I do think it gets easier to recognise modern composers as styles have become more divergent.

What we learn from this, I don't know.


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## Whistlerguy (May 26, 2010)

> If the 5 symphonies were all by the same composer or composers from similar periods (Haydn & Mozart or Mahler & Bruckner), then I'd have a very slim chance.


Does this means that a symphony is maybe not one compact connected work, but just collection of four different and quite independent movements?

Can movements be considered as complete independent pieces of music?

Could we assemble one meaningful symphony by combining four movements from four different symphonies (maybe from the same composer or in the same key)?

Could a musical expert be sure upon hearing such an assembled symphony that something is wrong? Could he tell that the movements are too little related to each other, OR he would be perfectly OK with it and think that all the movements belong to the same symphony?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I remember reading about something like this being done in the late 19th century, when four or five prominent composers each contributed a movement to a symphony. It must not have been a very good symphony -- it's not played much if at all. I can't even remember who the composers were. That would be sort of like a round-robin story, more of a stunt than a work of art. 

Remember that since Beethoven's time, maybe even Haydn's, symphony movements started becoming more interconnected, sometimes reprising themes from earlier movements. Beethoven's 5th even has the same four note motif throughout all four movements, often hidden or disguised, but it's still pretty obviously present. Certainly the 4th movement of his 9th symphony wouldn't make sense at all without the previous movements. So I don't think the movements are always separate entities. Maybe just think of them as episodes in a larger arc.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Weston said:


> I remember reading about something like this being done in the late 19th century, when four or five prominent composers each contributed a movement to a symphony. It must not have been a very good symphony -- it's not played much if at all. I can't even remember who the composers were. That would be sort of like a round-robin story, more of a stunt than a work of art.


Huh. I'd like to find out more about this.


> Remember that since Beethoven's time, maybe even Haydn's, symphony movements started becoming more interconnected, sometimes reprising themes from earlier movements. Beethoven's 5th even has the same four note motif throughout all four movements, often hidden or disguised, but it's still pretty obviously present. Certainly the 4th movement of his 9th symphony wouldn't make sense at all without the previous movements. So I don't think the movements are always separate entities. Maybe just think of them as episodes in a larger arc.


Tchaikovsky also composed a few cyclical symphonies.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

One tricky thing about symphonies is that composers like to mix up the middle movements. The 2nd movement isn't always slow, and the 3rd fast. So I would likely get confused with the middle movement order. Beginning and Finale movements are easy, because their endings are differentiated by either a feeling of complete satisfaction or dissatisfaction.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Argus said:


> If the 5 symphonies consisted of one work by, say, Haydn, Bruckner, Penderecki, Glass and Branca each, then I'd have a great chance.
> 
> If the 5 symphonies were all by the same composer or composers from similar periods (Haydn & Mozart or Mahler & Bruckner), then I'd have a very slim chance.


To suggest that movements of the Bruckner and Mahler symphonies could be somehow mixed up in error is to suggest that they (the two and their symphonies) are somewhat similar. That would sharply contradict all of my previous knowledge about them, I'm afraid. In fact, isn't a distinctive appreciation for one composer at the expense of the other rather a divisive force among classical music fans?

Also Haydn and Mozart? Probably a bit trickier for most folks, but then again, was Haydn a genius with a touch quite as light as that of Mozart?


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

I'd like to think I could, yes.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Weston said:


> I remember reading about something like this being done in the late 19th century, when four or five prominent composers each contributed a movement to a symphony. It must not have been a very good symphony -- it's not played much if at all. I can't even remember who the composers were.


Would you be thinking of Mussorgsky, Borodin, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov? I think they collaborated on a piece which they dedicated to their publisher, only it was a string quartet, not a symphony. It has a name, but I don't remember it.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Fsharpmajor said:


> Would you be thinking of Mussorgsky, Borodin, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov? I think they collaborated on a piece which they dedicated to their publisher, only it was a string quartet, not a symphony. It has a name, but I don't remember it.


Maybe that is it. I do think they were Russian composers. I haven't been able to find a link to whatever I was half remembering.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

I've found it, it's _String Quartet on the Theme "B-la-F."_ Rimsky-Korsakov, Liadov, Glazunov and Borodin each wrote a movement. It's mentioned in this article:

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrofan_Belyayev*

Here's the first movement, by Rimsky:

*



*


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Serge said:


> To suggest that movements of the Bruckner and Mahler symphonies could be somehow mixed up in error is to suggest that they (the two and their symphonies) are somewhat similar. That would sharply contradict all of my previous knowledge about them, I'm afraid. In fact, isn't a distinctive appreciation for one composer at the expense of the other rather a divisive force among classical music fans?


A pair of Wagnerites. Loads of brass and balls.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Argus said:


> A pair of Wagnerites. Loads of brass and balls.


So, works by composers carry no personal traits that they can be distinguished by?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Whistlerguy said:


> Does this means that a symphony is maybe not one compact connected work, but just collection of four different and quite independent movements?


nice question, i have never understood the reason of the separation in different movements. I can understand it in a book, but in a musical work i don't know why one have to consider four (for example) different separated movements like parts of a whole.


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

norman bates said:


> nice question, i have never understood the reason of the separation in different movements. I can understand it in a book, but in a musical work i don't know why one have to consider four (for example) different separated movements like parts of a whole.


 Aren't there some symphonies where there is actually no interval or pause between movements? I seem to recall that there might have been one with such a feature by Rachmaninoff, but I'm not sure.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

samurai said:


> Aren't there some symphonies where there is actually no interval or pause between movements? I seem to recall that there might have been one with such a feature by Rachmaninoff, but I'm not sure.


I'm not sure about Rachmaninov but Sibelius' 7th is a one movement symphony.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

samurai said:


> Aren't there some symphonies where there is actually no interval or pause between movements? I seem to recall that there might have been one with such a feature by Rachmaninoff, but I'm not sure.


I can think of a few symphonies which are either in a single multi-sectioned movement or where the movements are meant to be played _attacca_ (ie with no break between movements). There are many more than in this list, but here are a few examples:

Barber - Symphony No 1 (single movement)
Bantock - Celtic, Hebridean and Pagain Symphonies (multi-sectioned single movements)
David Diamond - Symphony No 8 (one movement)
Havergal Brian - Symphonies 5, 6, 8, 10, 12-17, 24, 31 (all in one movt)
Holmboe - Symphony No 7 (single movement)
Parry - Symphony No 5 (Symphonic Fantasia)(4 linked movements)
Schmidt - Symphony No 4 (4 linked movements)
Schoenberg - Chamber Symphony No 1 (4 linked movements)
Schumann - Symphony No 4 (4 linked movements)
Shostakovich - Symphonies 11 & 12 (4 linked movements)
Sibelius - Symphony No 7 (single movement)
Robert Simpson - Symphonies 5 & 9 (5: 5 linked movements; 9: single organic movement of 50 minutes!)

And, of course, Mendelssohn's E minor violin concerto is played with each movement running without a break into the next.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Matthijs Vermeulen wrote seven symphonies and the fifth is the only one that has more than one movement.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

And, of course, I forgot Nielsen's 4th, the _Inextinguishable_ (4 linked movements, although the composer called it one movement!).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

The music of the 'Stronger' composers from any era -- even from the same era -- has distinct fingerprints, the music having idiosyncratic musical traits, gestures, rhythmic preferences, 'trademark' harmonic - musical gestures.

One could liken this to a police line-up of very similar looking people, easily confused until one of them, literally, speaks in their own voice, with all the qualities which distinguishes that voice from the voice of the others. Add some body language, subtle gestures, all of it wrapped up in 'personality,' and you get a pretty positive I.D.

This is, of course, where musicologists and theorists excel.

Some symphonies, it does seem like a rather arbitrary choice of what characteristics the middle movement, especially the middle movement, might have.

Then again, you take a composer as intuitive as Poulenc, with really unrelated material from movement to movement which still seems to have a very pertinent connection to its predecessors and antecedents, and that quality becomes a 'known' to make your challenge less of a guessing game.

Could I? Depends, really - not a musicologist, I, and perhaps happy to leave such games to others. I do know it is very possible, with a high degree of accuracy, for said types of puzzle to be solved.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I've always fantasized about doing this with classical era composers. I fancy I could tell if something was by Mozart, Haydn, Kozeluch, Kraus, CPE Bach, Dittersdorf, whoever. Somebody should test me.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

norman bates said:


> nice question, i have never understood the reason of the separation in different movements. I can understand it in a book, but in a musical work i don't know why one have to consider four (for example) different separated movements like parts of a whole.


Oh, let's just run one act of a three or four-act play, or read one chapter of a three or four chapter novelette. I hope you get the idea


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