# Symphonies like Schubert's Ninth "Great"



## peeyaj

Need some recommendations (symphonies) on the style and scope of Schubert's Great C major  This one is my favorite symphony of all time..

Thank you for the help 

ie: ( full of infectious and long melodies, classical or romantic, heavenly, etc.. )

condition: Bruckner is one, but I want someone new.. If Wagner would write a Schubert Ninth, he would produce the symphonies of Bruckner.


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## Ukko

I don't share your affection for Schubert's 9th, so this probably won't help... have you heard Rachmaninoff's 2nd?, or Dvorak's 9th?


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## KenOC

I have always associated Dvorak's "From the New World" with Schubert's Great C major. Also, for some even more obscure reason, Beethoven's 7th, which seems to have resisted nicknames (despite Wagner's efforts).


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## peeyaj

Hilltroll72 said:


> I don't share your affection for Schubert's 9th, so this probably won't help... have you heard Rachmaninoff's 2nd?, or Dvorak's 9th?


Dvorak's 9th is reaally good..the Rachmaninoff so so..  Thanks for the recommendations anyway!!


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## peeyaj

KenOC said:


> I have always associated Dvorak's "From the New World" with Schubert's Great C major. Also, for some even more obscure reason, Beethoven's 7th, which seems to have resisted nicknames (despite Wagner's efforts).


Beethoven's 7th is on of the influences of the Great C major. What I meant really are symphonies after Schubert;s Ninth.


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## neoshredder

How about Schumann? He was deeply influenced by Schubert's Symphony 9 when he wrote his Symphonies. Some of it had to rub off.


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## joen_cph

Keeping an eye on the style of the Schubert 9th, you might dig into the relatively obscure symphonies of Asger Hamerik

no.3 



no.2


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## Art Rock

Mendelssohn's 3d and 4th cone to mind.

Off the beaten path: you could check out the symphonies of late romantic composer Hans Huber.


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## elgar's ghost

Try the symphony in e-major by the ill-starred Austrian Hans Rott (composed in the late 1870's not long before his mind caved in).


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## Andreas

Probaby not exactly what you're looking for, but there's a wonderful version of Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet for full orchestra:


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## moody

Andreas said:


> Probaby not exactly what you're looking for, but there's a wonderful version of Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet for full orchestra:


I have to ask why on earth anyone would commit such a crime against this quartet which is so marvellous as the composer wrote it in the first place.


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## ptr

moody said:


> I have to ask why on earth anyone would commit such a crime against this quartet which is so marvellous as the composer wrote it in the first place.


I can see two reasons; 
1/ that someone posses a fair amount of Hubris and think it can perfect what was left undone by the composer. 
2/ it might have been a challenge of some sort, remember Columbia Gramophone's 1928 contest to complete Schubert's 8th.

Throughout history it has not been uncommon for chamber works to get orchestrations and vice versa, thus nothing novel (I have not heard ether on this CD so I can't comment on them)

BTW, in most learned musical circles of today Schubert's 8th is believed to be a complete symphony, that Schubert just put down his pen and thought it finished!

/ptr


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## tdc

Well, I don't think you'll ever find another Schubert 9, it is a one of a kind. However, the closest thing that comes to mind off the top of my head I would say (and is also a breath taking and majestic work) is Sibelius Symphony no. 3.


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## moody

Strange that you should mention this competition,the joint winner of the English zone was Frank Merrick who in fact was a professor at the Royal Academy in Manchester and a pupil of Leschetitzky and a famous pianist in his time.
He actually had his own record label "The Frank Merrick Society" but by then he was rather past his best,but very interesting to hear.
His son Paul is a member of my bridge club and completely uninterested in classical music. Isn't that nearly always the case !


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## moody

I don't really think that there is anything that is in any way similar,but that's good really because the 9th is rather special.


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## ptr

moody said:


> Strange that you should mention this competition...


This world is a smaller place then most of us give it credit for!
I will have to investigate Merrick Sr now that You have mentioned him! 

/ptr


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## moody

ptr said:


> This world is a smaller place then most of us give it credit for!
> I will have to investigate Merrick Sr now that You have mentioned him!
> 
> /ptr


One record that is of interest is Merrick and Henry Holst playing Sibelius' Sonatine and Gunnar de Frumerie's Sonata No.1 in A Minor. That was recorded in 1967.


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## Ukko

ptr said:


> I can see two reasons;
> 1/ that someone posses a fair amount of Hubris and think it can perfect what was left undone by the composer.
> 2/ it might have been a challenge of some sort, remember Columbia Gramophone's 1928 contest to complete Schubert's 8th.
> 
> Throughout history it has not been uncommon for chamber works to get orchestrations and vice versa, thus nothing novel (I have not heard ether on this CD so I can't comment on them)
> 
> BTW, in most learned musical circles of today Schubert's 8th is believed to be a complete symphony, that Schubert just put down his pen and thought it finished!
> 
> /ptr


I have a recording of Mahler's 'arrangement' of D.810, for string orchestra, on a Praga CD (PRD/DSD 205 246). The principal, ah, _preserving_ addition to the score is the double-bass parts. Mahler being Mahler, he also made some other modifications that could be (and are) considered "thoroughly patent" and upsetting. I find his 'interventions' here much more noticeable than his modifications to Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Whether _these_ changes 'work' or not is for the listener to decide. My personal take is that the music is too simply constructed to work well with expanded forces.

I have - for good reasons - not been invited into any "learned musical circles", but agree that Schubert's 8th Symphony is 'finished'. Not any too soon, either.


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## ptr

^^ on this point, I believe Mahler re-orchestrated Schumann's Symphonies and despite myself feeling that everything Mahler is better then Gold, he might not have bettered Schumann's intentions on the whole! (Much in the same way that Rimsky-Korsakov sweetened, tamed and made a mess of Mussorgsky's works by altering them to much!)

/ptr


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## Mahlerian

ptr said:


> ^^ on this point, I believe Mahler re-orchestrated Schumann's Symphonies and despite myself feeling that everything Mahler is better then Gold, he might not have bettered Schumann's intentions on the whole! (Much in the same way that Rimsky-Korsakov sweetened, tamed and made a mess of Mussorgsky's works by altering them to much!)
> 
> /ptr


To be fair, most conductors of the time tended to make small modifications to orchestration, especially for composers whose orchestration was seen as problematic (Bruckner, Schumann, Beethoven in spots). With the HIP movement, the idea of doing this kind of thing has become anathema, and furthermore, when the sizes of the groups are scaled down and the brass play with restraint, unnecessary!


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## Novelette

KenOC said:


> ...Beethoven's 7th, which seems to have resisted nicknames (despite Wagner's efforts).


It's a good thing, wouldn't you say? A nickname would probably make it more famous. As it stands now, we can guard that symphony [and the 8th, 4th, 2nd, and 1st!!!] jealously to ourselves.


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## Novelette

Mahlerian said:


> ...With the HIP movement, the idea of doing this kind of thing has become anathema, and furthermore, when the sizes of the groups are scaled down and the brass play with restraint, unnecessary!


That's partly the reason that Schumann's orchestration is so muddy and heavy. His Fourth Symphony, especially, which exists in two versions, was largely disliked because Schumann called for a muscular brass section in that work, while the string section remained unaltered. When this arrangement was performed, the strings were said to be virtually inaudible, and the symphony became a dismal failure for years. Eventually, in order to improve this symphony's standing in the public eye, he re-balanced the orchestral strength not by reducing the brass section, but by doubling the string section.

That's only one part of it, though. There certainly is some truth in the complaint that Schumann's orchestration was too heavy. His symphonies seem to be huge tutti blocs, with very little partitioning of the material to specific instruments or sections. The ear quickly become accustomed to boisterous tutto sections, and without dynamic or instrumental contrast, interest is invariably lost--to some extent at least.

It's a curious misfortune, because Schumann's oratorios, mass & requiem, concertos, and opera do not suffer from this density. Perhaps Schumann over emphasized the _sym-_ prefix in symphony, a prefix which is a variant of syn-, "together". =\


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## Xaltotun

I'm going to be rude and break your condition on Bruckner, because I'm going for an unusual recommendation: his 1st symphony. That's probably much more Schubertian than any of the others. Usually, when people are talking about Bruckner, you'll get recommendations on the 4th, the 7th, the 8th, the 9th... which are all quite far away from Schubert's "Great", much more Wagnerian. So: try the 1st, if you haven't done so already.


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## KenOC

Novelette said:


> Eventually, in order to improve this symphony's standing in the public eye, he re-balanced the orchestral strength not by reducing the brass section, but by doubling the string section.


Schumann's later (1850) version of the 4th Symphony was published only in the late 19th century by Brahms, over the objections of Clara. It is not normally played, but both versions are included in Gardiner's set of the symphonies. I prefer the 1850 version, which has other changes from the 1840 version. In fact all the symphonies sound well-scored in Gardiner's hands -- to me at least.


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## Novelette

It was the early version that Brahms published, the version that failed so terribly in Leipzig.

From John Worthen's biography of Schumann, Pg. 327:

"In December, 1851, as an act of homage to a Duesseldorf musician who had died tragically young, Schumann turned again to full orchestral work and orchestrated for performance the scherzo of Norbert Burgmueller's unfinished second symphony (Op. 11, in D Major). Doing the work, however, made him look again at his own old D Minor Symphony (1841). This too had been lying unperformed (indeed untouched) since its abortive first performance in Leipzig on 6 December 1841, exactly ten years earlier. It may well have been the anniversary -- Schumann always remembered such things -- which provoked him to return to it now. He started revising it on 12 December 1851 with what he called "re-instrumentation" and it became his Op. 120. He was also taking into account the particular needs (and weaknesses) of the Duesseldorf orchestra; as well as recreating the transitions between movements and making other structural changes, at times he doubled the string parts so as to try to ensure that some weight of sound, at least, materialised in the performance. This paid off at its premiere, though it would lead generations of musicians to complain that Schumann did not know how to orchestrate. Perhaps he feared that the Duesseldorf orchestra would not be able to do it justice; perhaps it had sounded thin to him in 1841. But nowhere else did he resort to the doubling of the parts; neither in his _Hermann und Dorothea_ overture, Op. 136, which he started just a week later."

..

The earlier version was the one that Brahms published over and against the objections of Clara. Given how poorly it was received during its premiere, and how successfully the later, heavier version was received, she did not wish for Schumann to be ill-thought of by posterity. She was known to protect Schumann's reputation jealously throughout her life, constantly performing his music, campaigning for revivals of his larger works, and destroying those works of his last days that she and Brahms feared to be a product of his madness [reportedly, these destroyed works were dozens of piano fugues that Schumann had composed while in the asylum].

I agree that Gardiner's recordings of both the 1841 and the 1851 versions are very important. They both have their charms. In fact, it was the Scherzo of the 1841 version that was my first exposure to Schumann's symphonies. I've been an addict ever since.


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## Arsakes

neoshredder said:


> How about Schumann? He was deeply influenced by Schubert's Symphony 9 when he wrote his Symphonies. Some of it had to rub off.


This Great in C major is powerful and long symphony with triumphal and joyful theme.

No Schumann symphony is like that, but a made up symphony using these movements can be like The "great":

Symphony No.1: I - Andante un poco maestoso
Symphony No.2: I - Sostenuto assai, Allgero ma non troppo
Symphony No.4: I - Ziemlich landsam, Lebhaft
Symphony No.4: IV - Langsam, Lebhaft

Symphony No.3 is so special and cannot be used!

Other suggestions: 
Beethoven Symphony No.7
Dvorak Symphony No.5 (somewhat)


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## PlaySalieri

Looks like you have similar taste to me - I could have saved you the trouble of listening to rachmaninov's second.
I'm afraid you are going to struggle as Schubert's 9th symphony is really a wonder of wonders and I like it better than any Beethoven symphony - it's like saying you like Die Zauberflote - and can anyone recommend something similar.
My favouriter recording of schubet's 9th is quite an old one - Krips on Decca.


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## KenOC

Novelette said:


> It was the early version that Brahms published, the version that failed so terribly in Leipzig.


Ah, the perils of age and fading memory! You are right of course -- I had it backwards! And it is, in fact, the earlier version I prefer.


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## Novelette

KenOC said:


> Ah, the perils of age and fading memory! You are right of course -- I had it backwards! And it is, in fact, the earlier version I prefer.


I like the earlier version, too. Schumann was incapable of writing bad music, in my opinion.


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## peeyaj

stomanek said:


> Looks like you have similar taste to me - I could have saved you the trouble of listening to rachmaninov's second.
> I'm afraid you are going to struggle as Schubert's 9th symphony is really a wonder of wonders and I like it better than any Beethoven symphony - it's like saying you like Die Zauberflote - and can anyone recommend something similar.
> My favouriter recording of schubet's 9th is quite an old one - Krips on Decca.


I looooove Krips!!! His recording with the LSO is better than Furtwangler's!!!!  Agree!!


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## julianoq

Xaltotun said:


> I'm going to be rude and break your condition on Bruckner, because I'm going for an unusual recommendation: his 1st symphony. That's probably much more Schubertian than any of the others. Usually, when people are talking about Bruckner, you'll get recommendations on the 4th, the 7th, the 8th, the 9th... which are all quite far away from Schubert's "Great", much more Wagnerian. So: try the 1st, if you haven't done so already.


I echo this recommendation. I am still trying to get into Bruckner later works, but I enjoyed the 1st right away and also found it close to Schubert's 9th in style.


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## Kieran

KenOC said:


> Beethoven's 7th, which seems to have resisted nicknames (despite Wagner's efforts).


Yes, I heard this. I know that Wagner was a huge Star Trek Voyager fanatic and he often called this symphony _Seven of Nine_, and other times _Jeri Ryan_ and usually _The Sexy Blond Symph_, but none of these nicknames really caught on...


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## peeyaj

Bruckner's Symphopny no. 1.. Heard it today. It could have been written by Schubert himself!!


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