# Will the Symphony become obsolete? Has it already?



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Things that composers write called symphonies, regardless of strict theme development, 4-3 movements, and sonata form, do you believe the form/idea will not be considered relevant by the composers of the future and even today's composers on the whole? I certainly hope not.

See here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...hFcklVDsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20120220115542AArzu5B

There are a few interesting answers. What do you think? Do you agree with what is said in those answers?

Bear in mind that this was the exact title of my yahoo [email protected] post, designed to 
grab attention, so maybe its not a very thoughtfully phrased title, but I didn't think to rephrase it for talkclassical.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I think my answer to your question really depends on a more committed definition of what you take "Symphony" to mean. It could range anywhere between a piece in four movements - fast, slow, dance, fast - to any piece that is large, long and written for orchestra. The first of those is certainly dead; the latter certainly not, and I don't think it ever will be.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

As far as I can tell, the symphony is very much alive as a musical genre, although I don't think that a lot of them in the Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky tradition have been written recently.
The 9th one by Philip Glass is fairly recent, and the recent CD by Dennis Russell Davies and the Linz Bruckner orchestra just won one of the classical Grammies .I haven't heard it yet, and though I'm not a particularly enthusiastic Glass fan, I'd like to hear it.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Doubt it. Folks are still composing symphonies today. That composer Leif Segerstam has written 253 symphonies as at January 2012.  (not that I am familair with any of them).


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> I think my answer to your question really depends on a more committed definition of what you take "Symphony" to mean.


This was specified in the op. Its the second one you list. Maybe I just didn't say it very clearly. Well, I'm glad you think that "things called symphonies" will still be created. But I wonder if even the heyday of the greatest 20th century symphony has come to an end, colossuses like Dutilleux's Symphony no. 2 or the Henze Symphonic body of which I know no. 7. It still seems like works like that are slowly making an impact, the classical music public barely understands them, but is coming to admire them more.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> That composer Leif Segerstam has written 253 symphonies as at January 2012.  (not that I am familair with any of them).


Everyone who's every mentioned that guy has said, I've never heard them, but they probably are terrible. LOL. I'd be surprised if they were good, but maybe they are, who knows, I've never heard an actual opinion on them even.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> This was specified in the op. Its the second one you list. Maybe I just didn't say it very clearly. Well, I'm glad you think that "things called symphonies" will still be created. But I wonder if even the heyday of the greatest 20th century symphony has come to an end, colossuses like Dutilleux's Symphony no. 2 or the Henze Symphonic body of which I know no. 7. It still seems like works like that are slowly making an impact, the classical music public barely understands them, but is coming to admire them more.


We end up with the question, though: if "symphony" has come to mean a large, long, orchestral piece, does it really matter if it's called a "symphony" any more? I'm sure we could all think of grand orchestral pieces not called symphonies that could have been called symphonies if the composer had wished. How important is the label?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> How important is the label?


I don't just think of it as a lengthy orchestral piece, I think of it, as a lengthy orchestral piece with a tendency towards having themes that are repeated and varied in some way(even if you can't detect it without paying attention) or another and a tendency towards multiple movements, though not necessarily. The symphonies I mentioned above actually do this. There have been some like this written as recently as the 90s and possibly within the last decade.

What is underneath the label evolved in the 20th century in different ways. I don't think the label is necessarily so empty though.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> I don't just think of it as a lengthy orchestral piece, I think of it, as a lengthy orchestral piece with a tendency towards having themes that are repeated and varied in some way(even if you can't detect it without paying attention) or another and a tendency towards multiple movements, though not necessarily. The symphonies I mentioned above actually do this. There have been some like this written as recently as the 90s and possibly within the last decade.


So you do have a definition that you didn't tell me about.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

The symphony composed to the 20th C. formula is probably moribund, not in many composers' to do lists. We're moving on.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> The symphony composed to the 20th C. formula is probably moribund, not in many composers' to do lists. We're moving on.


That's how it seems to me as well...not many of my fellow composition students at Cornish, even out of the classically trained ones, have expressed much interest in writing symphonies sometime in the future.

I'll still be writing them though I think, sometime at least.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> The symphony composed to the 20th C. formula is probably moribund, not in many composers' to do lists. We're moving on.


What do you think we are moving on to?

I wonder why we have to move so fast. Many people, like myself, are only beginning to get what came a generation before. It wasn't always like this.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> That's how it seems to me as well...not many of my fellow composition students at Cornish, even out of the classically trained ones, have expressed much interest in writing symphonies sometime in the future.


What kinds of stuff do they write? I hope some of them look beyond strange sounds and write cool things like you do .


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## Guest (Feb 21, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> What do you think we are moving on to?


To whatever composers actually do. As for what they've actually done, well that moved away from "symphonies" and such several generations ago, though, as we've seen, there are still people writing things they call symphonies. (The thing that the chosen answer on yahoo calls Cage's one symphony is not. Cage never called it that. And no one until a particular recording of the piece that just recently came out called it that, either. That was pure whimsy on the part of the producers.)



clavichorder said:


> I wonder why we have to move so fast. Many people, like myself, are only beginning to get what came a generation before. It wasn't always like this.


It's been like that for a good long time, though. And before that, "many people" went to concerts _in order_ to hear new music.

In any event, it needn't take all that much time to get up to speed. What it definitely does take is a certain attitude. I started listening to 20th century music in 1972. By 1984, I was caught up, i.e., was listening to music written in 1984. That's not too bad. And from that point, it's been quite easy to stay caught up. Having said that, I hasten to remind you that there's no _necessity_ to be caught up. It'd be nice for music generally and composers particularly if the audience were larger (if the amount of money coming in were larger), but composers have managed to compose without much money before. I'm sure they'll continue to do so.

So if the "we" is listeners, then of course the listeners can (and do!) move as slowly as they like. If the "we" is composers, however, that's a very different matter. Composers are going to go at whatever speed they like. Why? Why not!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> What do you think we are moving on to?
> 
> I wonder why we have to move so fast. Many people, like myself, are only beginning to get what came a generation before. It wasn't always like this.


This will get me no points from the composers here, but... composing a long duration work of any sort needs discipline. At the end you have to have been somewhere, and got somewhere else. In an orchestral work you have to compose _parts_ for sections, first and second parts within most of them. You have to figure out how all those instruments will sound in a hall. It can't be an easy task.

I have noticed in several recent (last 20 years or so) works for orchestra that the parts seem to be simplified, with the 'tricky stuff' handled by one or two sections that maybe the composer feels comfortable writing for. Maybe that's an anomaly of occurrence, but maybe not.

??


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> This will get me no points from the composers here, but... composing a long duration work of any sort needs discipline. At the end you have to have been somewhere, and got somewhere else. In an orchestral work you have to compose _parts_ for sections, first and second parts within most of them. You have to figure out how all those instruments will sound in a hall. It can't be an easy task.
> 
> I have noticed in several recent (last 20 years or so) works for orchestra that the parts seem to be simplified, with the 'tricky stuff' handled by one or two sections that maybe the composer feels comfortable writing for. Maybe that's an anomaly of occurrence, but maybe not.
> 
> ??


Hmmmm, very interesting.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Among composers with recent symphonies in my CD collection I might include:

Einojuhani Rautavaara
Kalevi Aho
Alfredo Casella
Henryk Gorecki
Vagn Holmboe
Kurt Atterberg
David Diamond
Michael Daugherty
Michael Tippett
Alan Hovhaness
Witold Lutosławski
Mieczyslaw Weinberg
Ned Rorem
Mayuzumi Mandala
Humphrey Searle
Hans Werner Henze
Krzysztof Penderecki
Alfred Schnittke

Perhaps the symphony is not the dominant central musical form it once was... but as long as any composer of merit feels it is a form worthy of exploration, it will not become obsolete.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think symphonies will continue to exist, but not necessarily named as a symphony.

This has been going on for ages. Eg. from the early 20th century we have things like Debussy's _La Mer,_ which is a symphony in all but name. Same with his three _Nocturnes_ for orchestra & maybe his ballet_ Jeux_ is like that as well?

Major composers have gotten by without producing something called a symphony, but they still do symphonic works. Eg. Australian Peter Sculthorpe did his four_ Sun Music_ pieces in the 1960's, which can be taken a separate works or combined into a defacto 'symphony' of sorts. They work well either way, imo.

Some composers who avoided using the title symphony have written them in middle age, or as they get older. Peter Maxwell DAvies of the UK was one (though I've not heard any of his symphonies), as well as Aussie Richard Mills, fashioning a _Symphony of Nocturnes_ out of a recent ballet of his. It's an interesting work, I really like it.

In places like East EUrope and the former USSR, symphonies continued to be written, even as they fell out of fashion in the West for a while after 1945.

So symphony is not a dirty word. You can choose to use it without fear nor favour nowadays. It has gone in and out of fashion over the decades, but I think its future is secure...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Sid James said:


> I think symphonies will continue to exist, but not necessarily named as a symphony.
> .


That's an entirely different perspective. Thank you.


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## Guest (Feb 22, 2012)

Avet Terterian wrote a few good ones.

Robert Ashley wrote one.

Webern wrote one.

Zimmermann wrote one.

Ustvolskaya wrote a few.

Gubaidulina wrote one with twelve movements.

If you have _Musik in Deutschland_ cds, you have tons of twentieth century symphonies. Many pounds, anyway.

Even the great electroacoustic pioneer, Francis Dhomont, wrote a long, four part electroacoustic work called the _Frankenstein Symphony._

And speaking of things that aren't called symphonies but might as well be, how about Tod Dockstader's _Omniphony_?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

_Tercer movimiento de *Frankenstein Symphony*, de Francis Dhomont_ suggested by member _some guy_ above.

At about 1:20 onwards for another minute at least, you literally hear traffic noise, a duck quacking, and so forth. But at least it's not terribly noisy. Must be easy business to composer symphonies for some these days.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Doubt it. Folks are still composing symphonies today. That composer Leif Segerstam has written 253 symphonies as at January 2012.  (not that I am familair with any of them).


No. 212 is pretty good


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

The symphony is not dead. It's just sleeping.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

I thought it's been obsolete for like a century?

*grabs bystander* WHAT YEAR IS IT?


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

It's a bit like an Ondes Martenot or a TR-808. You can still use them, they serve a purpose, but there are more options available to the modern composer than there was at the time of their creation.

Similarly, symphonic form can still be used but there are plenty of other forms that are more relevant and using that particular form is more of a statement. Kinda like wearing breeches or a tricorn hat. Even using the word 'symphony' implies the composer is trying to link himself/herself to a particular branch of musical history.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Argus said:


> ...Even using the word 'symphony' implies the composer is trying to link himself/herself to a particular branch of musical history.


True. I read that one possible reason that Bartok did not call two works of his in particular that could well have been named as symphonies - _Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta _& also the _Concerto for Orchestra _- as such, is because he wanted to distance himself from the symphonic traditions of the past, esp. the Austrian-Germanic ones...


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Sid James said:


> True. I read that one possible reason that Bartok did not call two works of his in particular that could well have been named as symphonies - _Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta _& also the _Concerto for Orchestra _- as such, is because he wanted to distance himself from the symphonic traditions of the past, esp. the Austrian-Germanic ones...


There was a discussion about the future of the symphony on BBC R3's Music Matters programme a few months ago. They mentioned a few examples like that, where the composer could have called the work a symphony but chose not to and some who did the opposite and labelled a work symphony when it wasn't really.

Another reason is that by avoiding the word 'symphony' the music is less likely to be compared to and rated against the classic symphonies of Beethoven, Mahler etc.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Argus said:


> ...
> 
> Another reason is that by avoiding the word 'symphony' the music is less likely to be compared to and rated against the classic symphonies of Beethoven, Mahler etc.


Spot on. Composers are daunted by possibly being compared to Beethoven if they write a symphony. Brahms was not the only one. & I'd guess that there is a part of us that may unconsciously compare a new symphony to those of the past "greats," most likely to the detriment of the new work, but I don't really think is this kind of comparison useful to any degree, or a good one, etc.?...


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## TrazomGangflow (Sep 9, 2011)

I believe that the symphony will evolve over time like most things but will stay relevant with composers of the future.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

TrazomGangflow said:


> I believe that the symphony will evolve over time like most things but will stay relevant with composers of the future.


I most certainly agree. In the romantic era I have noticed that not many string quartets have made it into the average string quartet repertoire as classical and 20th century string quartets. Symphonies are still being composed but maybe they just aren't the current era's main focus. It'll almost certainly come back within the next 75 years or so.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I'm not too concerned since there is a lifetime worth of symphonies to listen to. I'm just thankful that they are so easily to attain these days through amazon.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

neoshredder said:


> I'm not too concerned since there is a lifetime worth of symphonies to listen to. I'm just thankful that they are so easily to attain these days through amazon.


I'm concerned because I'd like to compose them! But I wholly understand your point from a listener's standpoint.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> I'm concerned because I'd like to compose them! But I wholly understand your point from a listener's standpoint.


I am concerned for the same reason. But as I said before: "The symphony is not dead. It's just sleeping."


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

It's shrinking because it's too expensive.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> "The symphony is not dead. It's just sleeping."


Actually, it just smells funny.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Vaneyes said:


> It's shrinking because it's too expensive.


Yes, and that too.



Crudblud said:


> Actually, it just smells funny.


That's only with symphonies by Sibelius, Elgar and Vaughan-Williams.


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## Sequentia (Nov 23, 2011)

The concept of a symphony is likely to be less prominent, for obvious reasons: If classical music becomes less popular, orchestras will struggle more to survive, and they will hardly have an interest in performing music by living composers, and will confine their repertoire(s) to Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Mozart's 40th Symphony. Many contemporary/20th-century composers prefer(red) to write for chamber ensembles.

What I think will remain reasonably alive is the symphony for a solo instrument. Many composers wrote symphonies for solo organ. The only other instrument capable of producing a "quasi-orchestral" sound is the piano, but, to my knowledge, the only composers to have written a piano symphony (or several) are Alkan and Sorabji (feel free to correct me).


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

^^^^
What's great about the Seattle Symphony is that they do quite a few commissioned pieces.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Adding to my "expensive" thought. I find it incredulous, with maybe pinches of humor and sadness, that many organizations will continually downsize their once full-size symphonic or philharmonic orchestra, to something not too far away from a chamber orchestra. The chairs are spaced more and more. The percussionist's role expands. LOL


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

clavichorder said:


> What do you think we are moving on to?
> 
> I wonder why we have to move so fast. Many people, like myself, are only beginning to get what came a generation before. It wasn't always like this.


We move fast because our world moves fast and there's also the Cartesian break that occurred with the Darmstadt school which cannot be ignored by any living composer of worth (doen't mean they have to embrace it). You can already see composers that were the greatest **** just a few years ago and now they're drowning into oblivion due to their new music getting fixed in a phase. The luckiest craftiest of those may experience some sort of Bach-like revival somewhere in the future.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Shostakovich wrote the last great symphonies that remain standard repertoire.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Shostakovich wrote the last great symphonies that remain standard repertoire.


What about Schnittke?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

neoshredder said:


> What about Schnittke?


Schnittke is all too often overshadowed by Shostakovich, but Schnittke gets a mention.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Shostakovich wrote the last great symphonies that remain standard repertoire.


I wonder if one of the John Adams chamber symphonies will become standard repertoire. Both of them are pretty nice and quite accessible.


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## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

There has been a lot of discussion about the way modern symphonies have departed from the traditional four movement original set down by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Yet even in their lifetimes they composed symphonies with three or five movements, creating precedents followed by others. So in a sense there was never a single model for the symphony. In addition, we have modern symphonies in which there is no thematic development as such, so another of the standard rules has been broken. The so-called minimalist composers are good examples. So in a sense you can write virtually anything these days and give it the title symphony. In that sense symphony has survived albeit a rather strange forms; in another, the symphony in its strict form scarcely survived its originators.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Shostakovich wrote the last great symphonies that remain standard repertoire.


...

But not the last great symphonies.


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2015)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> We move fast because our world moves fast and there's also the Cartesian break that occurred with the Darmstadt school which cannot be ignored by any living composer of worth (doen't mean they have to embrace it). You can already see composers that were the greatest **** just a few years ago and now they're drowning into oblivion due to their new music getting fixed in a phase. The luckiest craftiest of those may experience some sort of Bach-like revival somewhere in the future.


One, this is a response to a two year old remark. So much for moving fast.

Two, the remark is that it wasn't always the case that many people are only beginning to get what came a generation before. No, it wasn't. It used to be that people got what was being done in their own generation. So much for moving fast.

Three, what the aitch ee double hockey sticks* does "Cartesian break" mean? I can't imagine. And, far as I know, the Darmstadt school didn't break anything.

And four, who are these "greatest ****" composers who are "drowning into oblivion"? We can't see any of them until you name them. I'm probably more deeply immersed (to follow up on your odd "drowning" metaphor) in this world than anyone else you know, and I don't know anyone who was prominent just a few years ago but who no longer is prominent owing to their new music getting fixed in a phase. (Though putting that way could be seen as a swipe at Steve Reich. Is he drowning "into" oblivion?)

*I'm not showing my age with this quaint expression, am I?


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I tend to agree with Polednice: any long piece for orchestra could be called a symphony.

Maybe the traditional four movement scheme will be saved for academic training, much like the fugue has gone by the wayside, and only be written by student composers, or by working composers who want to be academic.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Sinfonia = sounding together (of any number of instruments and parts.) I'm more than happy with many a symphony of the past, they're satisfying in their form and procedure, though enough of them coming later (a lot of the 20th century symphonists, Shostakovich, Sibelius, that string of Rubbra, Bax, and others, seem to me to be quite 'worn out' with the somewhat typical gestures, that damned recognizable theme, developed, etc. which I call the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" kind of effect -- all that had its place and time, but unless there is something different enough about a newer one, its actual content interesting to me, that old form and procedure drill sounds like someone has just pasted up modern wallpaper in a by now deathly familiar house of which all are deathly familiar with the floor-plan -- i.e. something superficially cosmetic with no news of interest at its basic level.

The 'big moments' of the brass ringing out, all glorious in many a past work, sound to me now like feeble imitations.

Sinfonia, at least, diverts away from those floor plans and allows some freer play of form.

Someone writes one which holds my attention, even without some major shift in its architecture away from the old form, I'm happy to listen; its just that I've heard very few which do grab my interest but for one here or there. (Lately, I 'discovered' Lukas Foss' _Symphony No.2, "a Symphony of Chorales. *(1958)*_ I'd recommend it to anyone.





I think some of the 'longing for the older forms is based upon the pleasure derived from that 'follow the bouncing ball' road-map and the kind of basic satisfaction most anyone gets, say, hearing the theme return in the recap after all the permutations of the development. I think that the current musical syntax, or mode of thought on procedure or forms which 'make a piece,' make the older symphonic format of far less interest to many current composers, at least, dare I say, the more interesting ones.

That said, whether recognizable to the listener or not, many an element or working principle from symphonic structure is still regularly used in larger symphonic works, multiple movement works, and concerti and / or concertante works. Composers have not tossed the baby out with the bathwater, but they are not replicating the old forms because whatever the musical dialectic, that old recognizable symphonic form, at present, just does not suit the composer's needs.

But look, Luciano Berio's _Sinfonia_ *(1969)*; Elliott Carter's _A Symphony of three orchestras_ *(1976)*; Thomas Ades concertante _In Seven Days,_ *(2008)* etc. Clearly, all is not lost, but morphed into something still quite 'symphonic' and with large instrumental forces 'symphonic,' at that.

You crave that follow the bouncing ball effect, I can think of none more excessive on that front than Bruckner


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## wagner4evr (Jul 10, 2010)

I don't think it will become obsolete; it will just make further departures from tradition.

I'm more worried about classical surviving _at all_. The number of young people I'm seeing attending opera and symphony is frighteningly small (although this has probably always been the case to some extent), as is the number of colleagues/acquaintances who actually_ support_ it in any way. So I guess my question would be, what's the point? Is the reward for a symphonic composer today worth the time and expense when less then three percent of album sales are categorized as classical? Seems to me they're better off applying their talents to film, animation, and billion dollar gaming franchises, but good luck landing that gig.


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2015)

I opened the first thread of this page and found it amusing that people were questioning Leif Segerstam's output on the basis of "no one seems to have heard his stuff". I quite like the several Segerstam symphonies in my collection. I will admit that the most recent one I've heard is No. 181, though.


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