# Greatest Symphony of the 20th century?



## KenOC

Just one please (and excluding that Gustav fellow -- I mean *real* 20th century).

My vote goes to Shostakovich's 10th, a big, brawny, serious, and highly original work of the highest quality. Any close runners-up are also Soviet.

Yours? You can argue with the rules as well, if you like!


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## Weston

No worries. That Gustav fellow, Holst's symphony isn't even in the running 

My personal favorite might be Vaughan-Williams No. 7, Sinfonia Antartica, but I must be realistic and admit that is little more than a very good film score.

So - I would go with Sibelius, maybe Sibelius No. 1. [Edit: okay the Sibelius 1 was 1898 so it too doesn't qualify.]

Very well, Vaughan-Williams No. 2 it is.

[Edit: actually I like Copland No. 3 a lot too. Maybe that one, though others have snubbed it.]


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## Itullian

Sibelius 2nd.
I really enjoy Nielsen 4 too.


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## Guest

I don't think Sibelius counts if Mahler doesn't. I assume he meant favorite symphony of the modern era, excluding all late romanticism.


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## jimsumner

If it was written in the 20th century, then it is a 20th century symphony. 

Self-evident, IMO.

Which means the correct answer is Mahler's 9th Symphony.

If you're asking for the Greatest Post-Mahler symphony, then why not frame the question more accurately?


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## KenOC

jimsumner said:


> If you're asking for the Greatest Post-Mahler symphony, then why not frame the question more accurately?


If that was what I was asking for, then that is what I'd do.


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## StlukesguildOhio

So instead you ask for the greatest 20th century symphony with the exception of Mahler? Next question: Who composed the greatest opera of the 20th century excluding Richard Strauss, Puccini, and that Debussy fellow.


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## starthrower

Alban Berg Lulu


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## starthrower

Too many great symphonies to name just one.


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## brotagonist

Considering I haven't yet heard all of Shostakovich's symphonies (_11 & 12_ are in the mail), and they're all still pretty new to me, since I only just got into him about a year ago, I would choose _Symphony 7, 8, 10 or 15_.

Schnittke's _Symphony 5/Concerto Grosso 4_ is certainly very remarkable, too... the only one of Schnittke's I have ever heard.

One shouldn't forget Messiaen's _Turangalîla Symphony_, either.

And Prokofiev's Symphony 2 is exceptional, and I don't know if his _Sinfonia Concertante_ counts, but it might just surpass his other symphonies, in my estimation (again, I haven't heard them all and _3, 4 & 6_ are in the mail).

I'd have a hard time choosing one over another.


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## KenOC

brotagonist said:


> And Prokofiev's Symphony 2 is exceptional, and I don't know if his _Sinfonia Concertante_ counts, but it might just surpass his other symphonies, in my estimation (again, I haven't heard them all and _3, 4 & 6_ are in the mail).


The Sinfonia Concertante (more often called the Symphony-Concerto these days) is very fine indeed but not terribly popular for whatever reason. Go figure! I have multiple recordings. Still, I'd put Symphony #6 at the top of the Prokofiev heap, even though the 5th is probably more popular. Tastes vary...


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## ArtMusic

Difficult to answer. 20th century symphonies can sound so very, very different. I am now listening to the symphonies of Kurt Atterberg (1887-1974) after finished listening to the symphonies of Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) both contempories of each other. Of these two, my vote goes to Atterberg, whose works sound more traditional in a late Romantic sense. But comparing that with Mahler's, it's not quite near Mahler's. Shotakovich's sound different as well. Quite amazing that one of the oldest classical music genres (the symphony) is still around sounding so very different.


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## Garlic

Why on earth shouldn't Mahler count? He wrote in the 20th century, his later symphonies are very much 20th century symphonies.

I vote Mahler 9. Honourable mentions: Prokofiev 2, Sibelius 4, Schnittke 3, Webern, Berio Sinfonia, Penderecki 1, Britten Cello Symphony, Nielsen 6, Ives 4


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## arpeggio

*How Should I Know*

For me threads like this are very frustrating. In the end they are exercises in futility. I follow them because occasionally someone will make an interesting observation. In this situation I agree with ArtMusic's comments. (I have also recently discovered the music of Atterberg.) It is impossible to answer such a question when applied to the music of the 19th, 20th and even the 21st century because of the extreme diversity of styles.

There must be something wrong with me but I do not see how one can compare the symphonies of Dvorák, Martinu, Aho or Sessions. It must be the curse of having a formal music education.

I recently secured a copy of the complete symphonies of Miaskovsky. He composed twenty-seven symphonies. Right now I am listening to his _Twenty-First Symphony_. I realize some of the experts around here may flip out when I say this but I think note for note they just as good as any post Beethoven symphony I have ever heard. Are they the greatest symphonies composed in the last one hundred years? I do not have the foggiest idea. All I know is I have been having a lot of fun listening to them. It amazes me the diversity of styles that one hears throughout these works. Some of them sound completely different from the other twenty-six.

Now I would be impressed if someone would come up with the greatest symphony composed by an Albanian between 1950 and 1970.


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## brianvds

It strikes me now that I don't know nearly enough 20th century symphonies to make a meaningful choice. So I'll vote for Bartok's Concerto for orchestra, even though supposedly it isn't a symphony.


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## Art Rock

Under the bizarre no-Mahler-rule, Gorecki's third.


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## Guest

brotagonist and brianvds both mention an important principle: unless you have heard every symphony written in the 20th century, you cannot answer this question.

Fortunately, it is not a question that is worth answering. (If you have listened to every symphony written in the 20th century, you wouldn't even want to answer this question. I would agree that it is not so much difficult as it is futile.)

Here's a math principle applied to this thread: the greatest symphony of the 20th century (like the greatest piano concerto of the nineteenth century or the greatest opera of the eighteen century or whatever) is a null set. Worse, it's distracting. While we're over here fashing ourselves for the umteenth time with something that doesn't exist, over there there's some really interesting symphonies just waiting to be listened to and enjoyed.

Hey! I've got an idea....


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## ptr

arpeggio said:


> Now I would be impressed if someone would come up with the greatest symphony composed by an Albanian between 1950 and 1970.


This is a trick question right? I don't think that Enver Hoxha allowed anyone to be great in that period of Albanian history! So the plain answer is none where allowed!

As for the OQ, very difficult to ascertain, do one let emotions or intellect choose? Emotionally there is a whole lot of "Fourths" that rank high with me, Sibelius, Nielsen, Shostakovich, Ives, Prokofiev, all written pre 1940, later Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie and Berio's Sinfonia and I really would not want to be without Shostakovich 8th and 13th's...

Introducing intellect in to this hotch-potch I think that (today) Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie would be my choice!

/ptr


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## chalkpie

No Mahler? Why?

Ives 4.


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## maestro267

As this has descended into a debate over whether Mahler = 20th century music, here's a simple solution:

20th century music = ANY piece written between January 1, 1901 and December 31, 2000 inclusive.

There. Problem solved. So some of Mahler's symphonies are 20th-century music, and some aren't.


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## Couac Addict

This is worse than Sophie's Choice...ummm.....Bax #6.
Stay tuned next week for an entirely different opinion.:lol:


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## Mahlerian

Mahler's Ninth is the best Mahler or non-Mahler symphony of the 20th century.

Even when one says Mahler doesn't count, he still beats the competition.

Anyway, notable mentions go to:
Mahler 6, Schoenberg Chamber Symphony, Ives 3, Sibelius 4, Webern, Roussel 3, Shostakovich 4, Stravinsky Symphony in 3 Movements, Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, Dutilleux 2, Lutoslawski 3


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## Guest

I would also have to go with Mahler, but while the 9th is very fine, indeed, my heart leans toward the 6th, but I wouldn't be upset if the 9th were to win. If we have to pick someone other than Mahler, then I would have to say Rachmaninoff's 2nd, or Sibelius' 2nd.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Among my choices would be Mahler's 4th and 8th as well as his _Song of the Earth_ (probably my first choice) which is as much a symphony (if not by name) as any other by the composer, Gorecki's 3rd, Strauss' _Alpine Symphony_, Dutilleux's 2nd, several by Shostakovitch, Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, Nielsen, Weinberg, Prokofiev, Martinu, Hartmann, Lutoslawsky's _Concerto For Orchestra & Symphony No.3_, Zemlinsky's _Lyric Symphony_, Howard Hanson Symphonies 2 "Romantic", 6 & 7, Hovhaness Symphonies 2 "Mysterious Mountain", 50 "Mount Saint Helens, and several others, William Schuman's Symphony 8, Philip Glass' Symphony no. 3, Szymanowski's 2,3 & 4, several by Rautavaara... and probably quite a few others that I cannot think of right now.


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## GioCar

Mahlerian said:


> Mahler's Ninth is the best Mahler or non-Mahler symphony of the 20th century.
> 
> Even when one says Mahler doesn't count, he still beats the competition.
> 
> Anyway, notable mentions go to:
> Mahler 6, Schoenberg Chamber Symphony, Ives 3, Sibelius 4, Webern, Roussel 3, Shostakovich 4, Stravinsky Symphony in 3 Movements, Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, Dutilleux 2, Lutoslawski 3


I would add to your list John Adam's Harmonienlehre


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## ArtMusic

some guy said:


> brotagonist and brianvds both mention an important principle: unless you have heard every symphony written in the 20th century, you cannot answer this question.
> 
> Fortunately, it is not a question that is worth answering. (If you have listened to every symphony written in the 20th century, you wouldn't even want to answer this question. I would agree that it is not so much difficult as it is futile.)
> 
> Here's a math principle applied to this thread: the greatest symphony of the 20th century (like the greatest piano concerto of the nineteenth century or the greatest opera of the eighteen century or whatever) is a null set. Worse, it's distracting. While we're over here fashing ourselves for the umteenth time with something that doesn't exist, over there there's some really interesting symphonies just waiting to be listened to and enjoyed.
> 
> Hey! I've got an idea....


Unless we have heard every single classical music from all times, we therefore also cannot answer similar types of questions concerning composers, genres, periods etc. - anything to do with ranking right?

Unfortunately, ranking and comparing are part of music discussion. And that includes ranking and comparing contemporary noise music.


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## Guest

maestro267 said:


> [H]ere's a simple solution:
> 
> 20th century music = ANY piece written between January 1, 1901 and December 31, 2000 inclusive.
> 
> There. Problem solved. So some of Mahler's symphonies are 20th-century music, and some aren't.


Problem solved, eh? Or is it?

This is a good debating answer. But it's not a good answer. And it's in no way any sort of solution at all.

Designations of eras are usually designations of styles. The "Classical" era. The "Romantic" era. The "Baroque" era. "Impressionism." "The modern era." And so forth. The twentieth century got the unfortunate designations of modern and avant garde and contemporary, all of which are way more useful as moving targets than as stylistic descriptors. But "oh well." So the twentieth century, which consists of at least two pretty distinct eras, I would say, plus quite a lot of nostalgia music, often just gets called "the twentieth century," tempting people into making chronological remarks like "ANY piece written between January 1, 1901 and December 31, 2000 inclusive." No one would ever say that about baroque or classical or renaissance or anything else. But since "the twentieth century" can mean both a chronological span (which, for some types is January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000 and for other types is January 1, 1900 and December 31, 1999) and a stylistic era, the temptation is there to ignore the relative messiness of the stylistic era in favor of the factitious neatness of the chronological span. Now if only we could agree when the span begins or ends, eh?

Fortunately, it doesn't really matter. The style changes that ushered in the "modern era" were in neither 1900 nor 1901, but over a decade later. (I would argue for 1906, but that's only hindsight. No one in 1907 thought that anything that happened in 1906 was earthshattering. Practically everyone in 1913 thought that the musical world had changed forever.

Stylistically, Mahler's symphonies are late romantic. All of them, on either side of the century mark.

Stylistically, none of them are modern. Not in the sense that Ives is modern. Or Schoenberg or Stravinsky. Or Janacek or Bartok, for that matter.

No artist is going to change style suddenly simply because the calendar has done something. And if the eras are broad designations of style, then we needn't expect that any of them are necessarily going to happen at the century marks. And sure enough, few if any of them did.

The OP clearly sets out "20th century" as a stylistic designation rather than simply a chronological one.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> The OP clearly sets out "20th century" as a stylistic designation rather than simply a chronological one.


In retrospect, I wish I had specified "the last 100 years," which would also have truncated that pesky Sibelius...


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## Weston

We often want to divide our artistic styles into neat little century marks or decade marks, but it just doesn't really work that way.

I've often felt that decades have more clear delineation at the halfway point. In the pop world 1965 was a lot closer in style to 1970 than 1960 was to 65, if you take my meaning. I wonder if centuries could work the same way. Certainly 1750 was the end of an era. 1850? Well, not so much but orchestras got a lot bigger and the writing far more hand wringing and hair pulling even though romanticism was already well under way. What happened in 1950? Ligeti maybe. Maybe not. So even this approach doesn't hold much water. 

It's still amusing and harmless to try, all the people wanting throw a wet blanket on these threads aside.

I'm sticking with my choice of Vaughan-Williams No. 3. (What? I said No. 2? I'm sure I meant No. 3. )


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## GreenMamba

For me, Ives 4th, Vaughan Williams 5th, Stravinsky of Psalms.


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## KenOC

The OP says, "Just one." Few seem to be able to show such restraint, though. :scold:


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## starry

KenOC said:


> The OP says, "Just one." Few seem to be able to show such restraint, though. :scold:


The interest for some is in the breadth of music, and not narrowing it down to seemingly pretend that doesn't exist. All the 'greatest' polls are fundamentally flawed like that.


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## Guest

Are we allowed to include symphonies that might have been written for films that haven't been made?


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## MrTortoise

Choose just one? Today it would be Gorecki #3. I'm sure it will change tomorrow.


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## Manxfeeder

Someone should mention La Mer.


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## chalkpie

Even for the final movement alone, this is one of the reasons Ives 4 is included in this poll, and in fact could very well be number one (as it is for me). There exists no music that sounds like this - goes to as many places - and in fact could be the greatest music ever written by an American. For me Ives and Zappa are the pinnacle of American composition, but Copland could be tossed in as well. And Schuman, Cage, Babbitt, Don Van Vliet, etc, etc.


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## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> Are we allowed to include symphonies that might have been written for films that haven't been made?


Certainly. Also symphonies that might not have been written for films that _were _made.


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## MJongo

I can't decide between Ives 4 and Shostakovich 15.


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## Weston

chalkpie said:


> E For me Ives and Zappa are the pinnacle of American composition, but Copland could be tossed in as well. And Schuman, Cage, Babbitt, Don Van Vliet, etc, etc.


I accept Zappa as a fine classical composer, but Van Vliet is still a bit of a stretch for me. He was one heck of a painter though.


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## chalkpie

Weston said:


> I accept Zappa as a fine classical composer, but Van Vliet is still a bit of a stretch for me. He was one heck of a painter though.


To my ears, this is on the level of any movement of a symphony. Every nano-second is composed and placed purposefully.


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## KenOC

MJongo said:


> I can't decide between Ives 4 and Shostakovich 15.


Shostakovich 15. Hope this helps.


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## samurai

That *Ives 4th* is truly haunting. It's very spacey; at times it reminded me of Sun Ra's Arkestra. Great find, Chalkpie. Now I'm going to dial it up on* Spotify* and give the whole piece a listen. Thanks for posting it!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Some of my favourites off the top of my head....

*Sibelius* 7
Messiaen
Mahler 7
Shostakovich 7
Webern
Stravinsky "Symphony of Psalms"
Henze 5
Rautavaara 3
Honegger 1
Glass 3


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Of course, how could I forget Schnittke......I wouldn't be able to decide between his symphonies, but I might leave out no. 0......


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## Kevin Pearson

There are so many great symphonies of the 20th century that it's very hard to pick just one and my choice could change on any given day. 

Today, however, I would choose Shostakovich's 7th Symphony (The Leningrad). The human drama behind the symphony is one of the reasons I would choose it. Not just because it is great musically but also because of the impact it had on so many people during WWII, and not just Russians. Shostakovich writing the symphony while doing what he could to help fight against the siege of Leningrad is moving. Even more moving is the story of it's first performance in Leningrad. Only 15 of the original Philharmonic Orchestra members remained and so a call went forth for anyone who could play an instrument. They even recalled some of the soldiers from the front line to play. An eyewitness (survivor) wrote of how affecting it was to see these musicians coming out of their homes, weak and malnourished, in their concert clothes and instruments to rehearsals. The event was broadcast live all over Russia. The symphony was performed in Leningrad on the 1st anniversary of Hitler's siege (August 29th, 1942). The siege was yet to last another two years and it's estimated that around a million people lost their lives defending Leningrad (an estimated 25 million Russians died during the war). None of us can even begin to understand the horror and triumph. Thankfully Shostakovich would survive and write several more symphonies but the suffering would never be forgotten.

Kevin


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## KenOC

Kevin Pearson said:


> Today, however, I would choose Shostakovich's 7th Symphony (The Leningrad). The human drama behind the symphony is one of the reasons I would choose it.


A counterpoint -- Esa-Pekka Salonen: "When I have said that the 7th symphony of Shostakovich is a dull and unpleasant composition, people have responded: 'Yes, yes, but think of the background of that symphony.' Such an attitude does no good to anyone."


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## Guest

Kevin Pearson said:


> There are so many great symphonies of the 20th century that it's very hard to pick just one.


There are so many, therefore it is hard to pick one.

That's the conclusion that one usually sees, anyway.

But how about this one? There are so many, therefore it is a silly idea to even try to pick just one. What would be the point? Indeed, that is the question that has needed to be asked all along. What would be the point? Let's say just for the moment that "greatest symphony of the 20th century" is _not_ a null set. Let's also say, just for the moment, that all of us agree on which symphony that is. What would that mean? Does that mean that none of the other symphonies are worth listening to? Obviously not. Does that mean that anyone who doesn't like this "greatest" symphony is an idiot or has bad taste? Well, very probably not. But any person's mental capacities or aesthetic sophistication are hardly germane. So that point shouldn't even come up.



Kevin Pearson said:


> my choice could change on any given day.


So don't choose. There, problem solved!!:lol:


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## GiulioCesare

Do I have to pick just one? OK, I won't.

Gorecki's 3rd.
Schnittke's 5th.
Adams' Harmonielehre.
Glass's 3rd.
Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.


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## GiulioCesare

some guy said:


> Problem solved, eh? Or is it?
> 
> This is a good debating answer. But it's not a good answer. And it's in no way any sort of solution at all.
> 
> Designations of eras are usually designations of styles. The "Classical" era. The "Romantic" era. The "Baroque" era. "Impressionism." "The modern era." And so forth. The twentieth century got the unfortunate designations of modern and avant garde and contemporary, all of which are way more useful as moving targets than as stylistic descriptors. But "oh well." So the twentieth century, which consists of at least two pretty distinct eras, I would say, plus quite a lot of nostalgia music, often just gets called "the twentieth century," tempting people into making chronological remarks like "ANY piece written between January 1, 1901 and December 31, 2000 inclusive." No one would ever say that about baroque or classical or renaissance or anything else. But since "the twentieth century" can mean both a chronological span (which, for some types is January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000 and for other types is January 1, 1900 and December 31, 1999) and a stylistic era, the temptation is there to ignore the relative messiness of the stylistic era in favor of the factitious neatness of the chronological span. Now if only we could agree when the span begins or ends, eh?
> 
> *Fortunately, it doesn't really matter. The style changes that ushered in the "modern era" were in neither 1900 nor 1901, but over a decade later. (I would argue for 1906, but that's only hindsight. No one in 1907 thought that anything that happened in 1906 was earthshattering. Practically everyone in 1913 thought that the musical world had changed forever. *
> 
> Stylistically, Mahler's symphonies are late romantic. All of them, on either side of the century mark.
> 
> Stylistically, none of them are modern. Not in the sense that Ives is modern. Or Schoenberg or Stravinsky. Or Janacek or Bartok, for that matter.
> 
> No artist is going to change style suddenly simply because the calendar has done something. And if the eras are broad designations of style, then we needn't expect that any of them are necessarily going to happen at the century marks. And sure enough, few if any of them did.
> 
> The OP clearly sets out "20th century" as a stylistic designation rather than simply a chronological one.


As far as I am concerned, the modern era has a most precise time of beginning: 29 May 1913.


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## Mahlerian

GiulioCesare said:


> As far as I am concerned, the modern era has a most precise time of beginning: 29 May 1913.


So Pierrot lunaire is pre-modern now?


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## GiulioCesare

KenOC said:


> In retrospect, I wish I had specified "the last 100 years," which would also have truncated that pesky Sibelius...


Why not just say "of the modern and postmodern eras"? That is clearly what you meant.


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## KenOC

GiulioCesare said:


> Why not just say "of the modern and postmodern eras"? That is clearly what you meant.


Your suggestion would lead to endless definitional arguments. But most people can agree on what "100" means. Well, around here, maybe not.


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## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> Your suggestion would lead to endless definitional arguments. But most people can agree on what "100" means. Well, around here, maybe not.


Don't let 'em get you down, KenOC! I for one _like_ all these "greatest work" threads, since I usually find one or two gems I haven't heard or at least haven't heard in a long time.

I'll nominate Stravinsky's Symphony in C, since I haven't seen this amazing work mentioned yet. I'll admit, too, that I can't help but "think of the background of that symphony," though Stravinsky doesn't make history quite so _audible_ in it as Shosty did in his 7th--in fact, that's one of the things I like about it.


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## sharik

KenOC said:


> Greatest Symphony of the 20th century?


Shostakovitch 7th.


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## Celloman

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Karl Amadeus Hartmann yet.

I think you could make a strong argument for his _Symphony No. 6_.


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## Guest

No-one seems to be keeping stock of the answers, so they're all largely wasted "votes" if any lessons are expected to be drawn from all this. A number of people have openly confessed that they haven't heard all that many 20th symphonies, so several suggestions are based on a fair amount of ignorance. Those who reckon they're better acquainted with the relevant subject matter often say they find it difficult to choose between several competing candidates, so we're either getting more than one suggestion or an arbitrary selection being made. The time period selected is arbitrary, as there are several 20th C symphonies that sound as if they could have been written in the 19th C, and vice versa. The exclusion of specified composers (Mahler for one, and possibly Sibelius) is very peculiar.


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## sharik

Partita said:


> The exclusion of specified composers (Mahler for one, and possibly Sibelius) is very peculiar.


because their music does not reflect the main events of the 20th century, namely the 1st World War and Russian Revolution and 2nd World War.


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## Crudblud

sharik said:


> because their music does not reflect the main events of the 20th century, namely the 1st World War and Russian Revolution and 2nd World War.


But there is no music that reflects any of that.


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## sharik

Crudblud said:


> there is no music that reflects any of that


Shostakovitch music does.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT

sharik said:


> because their music does not reflect the main events of the 20th century, namely the 1st World War and Russian Revolution and 2nd World War.


Mahler can hardly be marked down on that basis, seeing as he died in 1911  Besides, one might argue - as I believe Leonard Bernstein did - that Mahler's later works _foreshadowed_ what was to come, at least in spirit. One could easily construct a plausible "Story of the 20th Century" soundtrack from Mahler's Symphonies 5, 6, 7 and 9 - such is the pain, violence, discord and disorder to be found within them. The 10th, had he finished it, would merely have confirmed his already-evident status as a great symphonist, and as an artist of profound insight and humanity.


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## Crudblud

sharik said:


> Shostakovitch music does.


No, it doesn't. It is music, it can't do anything other than communicate itself.


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## Guest

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> One could easily construct a plausible "Story of the 20th Century" soundtrack from Mahler's Symphonies 5, 6, 7 and 9 - such is the pain, violence, discord and disorder to be found within them.


Ah. So the story of the 20th century is the story of pain, violence, discord and disorder, eh?

No medical discoveries?

No universal sufferage?

No chipping away at racism and sexism and ageism?

No wildly gorgeous paintings or buildings or music?

No, I think you will find--well, maybe you won't!!--that there is no pain, violence, discord or disorder to be found within Mahler's symphonies 5, 6, 7 and 9. (Why'd ya leave 8 out?) A lot of really lovely music. If you listen to them. Lot's of lovely music.

I think you'll also find, if you bother to look, that there was plenty of pain, violence, discord and disorder in the 19th century.

And in the 18th.

And the 17th.

And....

Yeah, I know. The twentieth century had some really impressive machines for killing people. A lot of people. All at once. I don't know that that is really any worse than the really ingenious machines for killing people one at a time that the Middle Ages were so good at. Torturing first, too, then killing. Something about torturing first that's pretty awful, eh?

Nope. The twentieth century has no sort of corner on the pain, violence, discord and disorder market. So even if Mahler's symphonies (or any piece of music, for that matter) actually had those things in them, it still wouldn't follow that they prefigure the rest of the twentieth century.

Poor old twentieth century. The favorite century to dump on. For us. You realize, of course, that your grandchildren will have a different favorite century to dump on. That's right. This one.

And so it goes.


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## Crassus

Shostakovich's 4th symphony. 

It is probably his most extensive work and one the hardest pieces in the orchestral repertoire.


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## sharik

Crudblud said:


> It is music, it can't do anything other than communicate itself.


tell that to Shostakovitch and his 2nd (To October), 3rd (The First of May), 7th (Leningrad), 11th (The Year 1905) and 12th (The Year 1917) symphonies.


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## dgee

Crassus said:


> Shostakovich's 4th symphony.
> 
> It is probably his most extensive work and one the hardest pieces in the orchestral repertoire.


Really? I've only played it once but it didn't seem to have abundant technical challenges. Certainly less difficult than putting together a Strauss tone poem or Mahler Symphony


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## Crudblud

sharik said:


> tell that to Shostakovitch and his 2nd (To October), 3rd (The First of May), 7th (Leningrad), 11th (The Year 1905) and 12th (The Year 1917) symphonies.


The music would sound the same no matter what title you apply to it, the 7th could just as easily be called "I like cheddar cheese" for all it matters to the content of the piece.


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## sharik

Crudblud said:


> the 7th could just as easily be called "I like cheddar cheese"


- only if you understand music as little as cheddar cheese does.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> - only if you understand music as little as cheddar cheese does.


Using musical terminology, please objectively explain how the content of Shostakovich's 7th symphony reflects what you say it does.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT

some guy said:


> Ah. So the story of the 20th century is the story of pain, violence, discord and disorder, eh?


Pretty much - at least in the terms of the criteria posited earlier on this thread to "dismiss" Mahler and Sibelius.


> No medical discoveries? No universal sufferage? No chipping away at racism and sexism and ageism?


Hardly the sort of events that lend themselves to a symphonic treatment.


> No, I think you will find--well, maybe you won't!!--


I'm not stupid, you know.


> that there is no pain, violence, discord or disorder to be found within Mahler's symphonies 5, 6, 7 and 9. (Why'd ya leave 8 out?) A lot of really lovely music. If you listen to them. Lot's of lovely music.


I've been enjoying Mahler for 35 years, so of course I know that. I know that those symphonies also express longing, ecstasy, spirituality and love - Mahler was capable of expressing the gamut of emotions, which is what made him, IMHO, the greatest symphonist of the 20th Century. However, to assert that those particular symphonies do not also convey pain, discord, disorder (etc) is, frankly, baffling. 


> I think you'll also find, if you bother to look


There you go again: "if you bother to look". I can assure you that I'm not in the least bit superficial.


> that there was plenty of pain, violence, discord and disorder in the 19th century.
> And in the 18th.


Nowhere near as much as was unleashed on, and by, humanity in the first half of the 20th. The extreme violence and misery of WWI and WWII was self-evidently on an unprecedented and - as yet - unrepeated scale. The strife and wars of previous millennia, even when added together, scarcely bears comparison.


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## tdc

Crudblud said:


> The music would sound the same no matter what title you apply to it, the 7th could just as easily be called "I like cheddar cheese" for all it matters to the content of the piece.


The title does not change anything in the music, but I think it does have an effect on how listeners will perceive a piece of music in the same way that lyrics to a song effect a listener's perception. If Shostakovich had given titles to his Symphonies like "I Like Cheddar Cheese" I do think it would have an effect on how he is viewed as a composer. The title becomes part of the content of the piece.


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## Guest

The responses in this thread are kinda annoying. I thought the thread was fairly straight-forward.


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## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Using musical terminology, please objectively explain how the content of Shostakovich's 7th symphony reflects what you say it does.


for example, the 1st part of it slowly develops into a march that refers Ravel's _Bolero_ with its post-WWI militarist feel and then goes on developing even further until the features of WWII start to loom, etc.


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## joen_cph

> Nowhere near as much as was unleashed on, and by, humanity in the first half of the 20th. The extreme violence and misery of WWI and WWII was self-evidently on an unprecedented and - as yet - unrepeated scale. The strife and wars of previous millennia, even when added together, scarcely bears comparison


One keeps hearing those claims, but historians have proved that they are statistically wrong, if the 20th Century is compared to other centuries. Moreover there are countless of statistics and political issues etc. which indicate the overall progress of the 20th Century.


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## sharik

tdc said:


> The title does not change anything in the music, but I think it does have an effect on how listeners will perceive a piece of music


well actually the title comes of a music, or the music is written according to a title.


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## Guest

I'm not going to answer the OP as I can't claim to have heard enough of anyone's works to vote. Instead, I'll ask a question.

Why is it that, given that programmatic and emotional 'interpretations' of music are a commonplace - reflecting many people's experience of music - there are those who continue to assert the correct, but purist notion that music cannot, as, for example, crudblud puts it, communicate anything but itself.

It seems to be like reminding everyone that the sun does not 'rise' and 'set' - it is the Earth's rotation that gives the appearance of rising and setting.

Whether everyone 'hears' the same content is of course open to debate; whether the content that some hear is any part of the composer's intent is also open to debate. But it's clear that once a composer deliberately makes associations between the music and something extra-musical - by giving movements titles, for example, the listener can be forgiven for 'hearing' things.

That query aside, I'm keeping an eye on suggestions so that I can add them to my list.


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## KenOC

joen_cph said:


> One keeps hearing those claims, but historians have proved that they are statistically wrong, if the 20th Century is compared to other centuries. Moreover there are countless of statistics and political wissues etc. which indicate the overall progress of the 20th Century.


This is explored in "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" by Steven Pinker. A fascinating book that tracks the rates of societal violence over the centuries. Recommended for people who watch far too much television.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> for example, the 1st part of it slowly develops into a march that refers Ravel's _Bolero_ with its post-WWI militarist feel and then goes on developing even further until the features of WWII start to loom, etc.


What features of WWII are evident? The only thing you could properly include in your analysis was a "march," which is fair enough because a march does not describe anything (it is a musical style,) but this march could have been written with pretty much anything in mind. Imagine if Shostakovich wrote that march in the context of a nameless symphony, what would you think it describes?


----------



## KenOC

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> What features of WWII are evident? The only thing you could properly include in your analysis was a "march," which is fair enough because a march does not describe anything (it is a musical style,) but this march could have been written with pretty much anything in mind. Imagine if Shostakovich wrote that march in the context of a nameless symphony, what would you think it describes?


I seem to remember that the "march" is actually taken, at least in part, from Lehar!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

KenOC said:


> I seem to remember that the "march" is actually taken, at least in part, from Lehar!


It should be called "The Merry Widow" symphony! Hitler would have loved it!


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## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> What features of WWII are evident?


the very fact Shostakovitch himself has titled the 7th as 'Leningrad' and the year it was written tell you nothing really?


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## sharik

KenOC said:


> I seem to remember that the "march" is actually taken, at least in part, from Lehar!


all the more so, this makes the 7th start even closer to WWI.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> the very fact Shostakovitch himself has titled the 7th as 'Leningrad' and the year it was written tell you nothing really?


These are non-musical references. Which features of WWII are evident in which notes? Please explain using musical terminology to come up with an objective statement about the _music itself,_ not the title nor the year it was composed because they are not the content of the score.


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## sharik

look how much meaning attributed to the 7th in the West - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._7_(Shostakovich)#In_the_West - how they first rejected it for being 'Stalinist' and how they then embraced it for being 'anti-Stalinist' this time around only because they managed to force his son Maxim into admitting the fake 'memoirs' written by some Solomon Volkov fellow.


----------



## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Which features of WWII are evident in which notes?


to start with, the snare drum beat written down in notes, isn't it?


----------



## Blancrocher

MacLeod said:


> I'm not going to answer the OP as I can't claim to have heard enough of anyone's works to vote.


There are no qualifications for expressing opinions on TalkClassical. I think you should just go for it! Tell us what you think the greatest symphony is--and if you change your mind down the road, tell us again!

There are published guides for anyone who wants "expert" opinions (which are still subjective, as informed as they may be).

We're all here for a good time (I think).

:lol:


----------



## joen_cph

sharik said:


> look how much meaning attributed to the 7th in the West - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._7_(Shostakovich)#In_the_West - how they first rejected it for being 'Stalinist' and how they then embraced it for being 'anti-Stalinist' this time around only because they managed to force his son Maxim into admitting the fake 'memoirs' written by some Solomon Volkov fellow.


the article you mention in Wikipedia about the symphony says:

_"*Re-evaluation*[edit]

When Testimony was published in the West in 1979, Shostakovich's overall anti-Stalinist tone and specific comments about the anti-totalitarian content hidden in the Fifth, Seventh and Eleventh Symphonies were held suspect initially. They were in some ways a complete about-face from the comments the West had received over the years, many times in the composer's words. Questions also arose over Solomon Volkov's role-to what degree he was a compiler of previously written material, a transcriber of the composer's actual words from interviews, or an author essentially putting words into the composer's mouth.

Two things happened. First was the composer's son Maxim's view on the accuracy of Testimony. He initially stated to the Sunday Times, after his defection to the West in 1981, that it was a book "about my father, not by him".[55] Later, though, he reversed his position. In a BBC television interview with composer Michael Berkeley on 27 September 1986, Maxim admitted, "It's true. It's accurate.... The basis of the book is correct."[56] Second, with the dawning of glasnost, those who were still alive and had known Shostakovich when he had written the Leningrad Symphony could now share their own stories with impunity. By doing so, they helped corroborate what had appeared in Testimony, allowing the West to reevaluate the symphony in light of their statements.

In recent years the Seventh Symphony has again become more popular, along with the rest of Shostakovich's work, with the piece viewed as a condemnation of both Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism._"


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> to start with, the snare drum beat written down in notes, isn't it?


And then there is the snare drum beat in a particular point in the coda of the first movement of Mahler's 7th that sounds similar but used for an entirely different and purely musical reason, also in Ravel's Bolero there is a continuous snare drum beat used not to describe anything military or warlike at all.

You said "to start with," so please do go on.


----------



## sharik

joen_cph said:


> the article you mention in Wikipedia about the symphony says:


yes i had read it and did you read it thoroughly enough, that is *read between the lines* ?


----------



## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> And then there is the snare drum beat in a particular point in the coda of the first movement of Mahler's 7th that sounds similar


only this time the piece was titled _'Leningrad'_ and its creation took place at the moment when Leningrad was sieged by the Nazis.


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## sharik

to corroborate my point there's also Shostakovitch Symph.2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Shostakovich) - that has got *words*:

_We marched, we asked for work and bread.
Our hearts were gripped in a vice of anguish.
Factory chimneys towered up towards the sky
Like hands, powerless to clench a fist.
Terrible were the names of our shackles:
Silence, suffering, oppression.

But louder than gunfire there burst into the silence
Words of our torment, words of our suffering.
Oh, Lenin! You forged freedom through suffering,
You forged freedom from our toil-hardened hands.
We knew, Lenin, that our fate
Bears a name: Struggle.

Struggle! You led us to the final battle.
Struggle! You gave us the victory of Labour.
And this victory over oppression and darkness
None can ever take away from us!
Let all in the struggle be young and bold:
The name of this victory is October!

October! The messenger of the awaited dawn.
October! The freedom of rebellious ages.
October! Labour, joy and song.
October! Happiness in the fields and at the work benches,
This is the slogan and this is the name of living generations:
October, the Commune and Lenin._


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## Prodromides

Andre Jolivet's _Symphonie No.3_ (1964)


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## Crudblud

sharik said:


> *words*


Yes, *words*, which are not *music*.


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## chalkpie

samurai said:


> That *Ives 4th* is truly haunting. It's very spacey; at times it reminded me of Sun Ra's Arkestra. Great find, Chalkpie. Now I'm going to dial it up on* Spotify* and give the whole piece a listen. Thanks for posting it!


No problem mate. Hunt down MTT/Chicago (Sony) for the best readily available version (recorded around 1986 or so) or order The Ensemble Modern version from their site with John Adams (yes that John Adams) conducting. It's phenomenal.


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## sharik

Crudblud said:


> Yes, *words*, which are not *music*.


words means the composer had to make the music suit the words.


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## Guest

Blancrocher said:


> There are no qualifications for expressing opinions on TalkClassical. I think you should just go for it! Tell us what you think the greatest symphony is--and if you change your mind down the road, tell us again!
> 
> There are published guides for anyone who wants "expert" opinions (which are still subjective, as informed as they may be).
> 
> We're all here for a good time (I think).
> 
> :lol:


Well thanks for the invitation. I appreciate it. Yet 'having listened to at least 5 symphonies by more than one composer' would seem to me to be a minimum qualification'. What I will say is that only Shostakovich out of 20th C composers of symphonies has so far snagged my attention.

Here, on the other hand, is a totally non-expert opinion. By the 20th C, the symphony was beginning to lose its preeminence as the supreme form. So I would say that 'which is the greatest symphony of the 20th C?' is the wrong question. It's not 'my' thread of course, and Ken is perfectly entitled to ask what he likes, but even he invited members to argue about the rules.

So, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is the greatest non-symphonic piece of the 20thC and it's greater than any symphony of the time too!

(Will that do, Blancrocher?)


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> words means the composer had to make the music suit the words.


OR the composer is in essence inviting the listeners to draw their own parallels between the music and the not-music (the words). Look at any "character piece" in the 19th century onwards to get the idea. The composer _cannot_ describe anything non-musical purely through _sound._ If Shostakovich didn't title this symphony and you did not know the background of its composition, would everyone be able to tell what it is "about?"


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## Guest

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> If Shostakovich didn't title this symphony and you did not know the background of its composition, would everyone be able to tell what it is "about?"


No one would be able to tell. No one.

There are all sorts of reasons for putting words and music together. COAG has mentioned some important ones.

One thing has not come up. What about the other direction? What about the words "telling" the music? Perhaps the music is (or was) difficult to understand. Perhaps it was too new for audiences. How to explain what the music is doing? Put some words to it. A program.

That's how Jacques Barzun describes the program to Berlioz' first symphony. It tells the music. (It was written after the symphony, too, which was rather difficult to grasp for people who had grown up on Haydn and Dittersdorf.) One thing is for sure. The music does not tell the story. Though the association has become so ingrained, that there's the illusion that it does. Take away the words, however, which by now you can only do by finding a person who has never heard any of the words, and you will have found a person who literally cannot supply the words by listening to the music.

Anyone who thinks that Shostakovich's seventh depicts anything about any war anywhere_ already knows the words,_ has already been seduced by the words, can no longer listen to the music without thinking of the words.

Too bad. But composers are no more intelligent or insightful or logical or sensible than anyone else. And sometimes, for whatever reason, they do things like change the name of their short piece for strings from _8' 37"_ to _Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima._

Oh well. Just another thing for us to deal with.


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## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> the composer is in essence inviting the listeners to draw their own parallels between the music and the not-music (the words)


yes he does 'invite' them do it and with a vengeance actually.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Look at any "character piece" in the 19th century onwards to get the idea. The composer _cannot_ describe anything non-musical purely through _sound_


look at Wagner's _Der Fliegende Hollander_ where the composer imitates storm wind with his music, not to mention _Der Ring_ where the music successully emulates the flickering of fire, eternity, doom, and so on.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> If Shostakovich didn't title this symphony and you did not know the background of its composition, would everyone be able to tell what it is "about?"


as to his 2nd symph - no, but when you hear the 7th you would well be able to tell that it was about war, and given the timeline, the Second World War.


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## sharik

some guy said:


> Anyone who thinks that Shostakovich's seventh depicts anything about any war anywhere_ already knows the words,_ has already been seduced by the words, can no longer listen to the music without thinking of the words


but what else can we do since the word was that of Shost himself ?


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## Guest

I would guess that most people aren't interested in the wider political/social circumstances in which any particular work (symphony or whatever) was constructed. Except for a vague interest in the purely historical issues, it doesn't concern me what was going on in Leningrad when Symphony No 7 was written. I quite like the work in question but I don't like it any more or any less due to these circumstances. I don't see classical music as a suitable vehicle by which to arouse the sympathies of the listener towards any cause, or to act a reminder of any historical events.


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## sharik

Partita said:


> it doesn't concern me what was going on in Leningrad when Symphony No 7 was written


that's because *you have no idea* what was going on there then.


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## shangoyal

Carlos Kleiber with the Wiener Philharmoniker playing Beethoven's 7th.


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## ptr

shangoyal said:


> Carlos Kleiber with the Wiener Philharmoniker playing Beethoven's 7th.


Beethoven feels very 20th Century indeed!

/ptr


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## sharik

shangoyal said:


> Beethoven's 7th


for that matter his 9th because it made such a huge impact on 20th century events no other symphony did.


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## Kevin Pearson

some guy said:


> Anyone who thinks that Shostakovich's seventh depicts anything about any war anywhere_ already knows the words,_ has already been seduced by the words, can no longer listen to the music without thinking of the words.


I hate to tell you but I knew the 7th was about war the first time I heard it and I knew absolutely nothing about it's history or background. The impending doom in the first movement needs no interpretation. It only made me appreciate the symphony more when I later learned the details surrounding it's history. So your statement above has no merit. I think I could play the symphony for anyone and the first movement would give it away.


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## Garlic

It's impossible for music to be "about" anything. I had no idea the 7th was supposed to be about war until I read about it. I thought it sounded somewhat militaristic, but that's because of cultural associations and nothing to do with the notes on the page. Play the symphony to someone from a Papuan rainforest tribe. How would they know it's supposed to be about war?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> as to his 2nd symph - no, but when you hear the 7th you would well be able to tell that it was about war, and given the timeline, the Second World War.


I heard the symphony for the first time on the radio, I tuned in at about one minute before the march section came in. At the time, I knew more about the second world war than I did about Shostakovich (it was one of the first Shostakovich works I had heard) and when I listened to it that time I didn't know the name of the work, the composer, when it was written let alone the background if the work, and all I could hear was music that I liked very very much and I thought sounded somewhat comical. _Because_ all I was hearing and all I knew was the *actual content of the score as played by musicians* I could not tell you what any non-musical subject was being emulated in the music.

It was only a few years later when I started listening to it again (on youtube) that I learnt about the history and background of Shostakovich composing the work. It made me rethink the whole symphony from a non-musical point of view BUT I was still convinced that what I had learnt from the work upon hearing the *actual content as played by musicians* will be infinitely more important to understanding the music and how it works. Backgrounds and histories and programs are never necessary ingredients to music because they are not music. If one claims that Shostakovich's 7th symphony is the greatest symphony of the 20th century and only lists non-musical reasons as to why one would make that claim, then it is a weak argument (however interesting it may be) because it says nothing about the music itself.

Music has the power to evoke a subjective/emotional response from a listener
Music does not have the power to describe or convey anything other than itself


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## Delicious Manager

I can't (won't) try to choose just one, but I will offer a list of post-Mahler works that I consider among the finest of the 20th century:

Corigliano - No 1
Nielsen - No 5
Nørgård - No 3
Pettersson - No 7
Prokofiev - No 6
Shostakovich - No 10


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## sharik

Garlic said:


> It's impossible for music to be "about" anything


but in my opinion it is impossible for music not to be about some thing.


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## Guest

Garlic said:


> It's impossible for music to be "about" anything. I had no idea the 7th was supposed to be about war until I read about it. I thought it sounded somewhat militaristic, but that's because of cultural associations and nothing to do with the notes on the page. Play the symphony to someone from a Papuan rainforest tribe. How would they know it's supposed to be about war?


It's not "impossible" but it is true that much music isn't "about" anything. However, most of the music discussed at TC is not produced in a cultural vacuum. It's composed by someone with a cultural background, for an audience with an implied (if not specifically defined) cultural background, while both composer and listener compose and listen within a cultural context.

Of course, that does not mean that all such music must therefore be confined only to those who share or understand the background. But it does mean that some music can be "about" something where the composer has a reasonable expectation that his audience will recognise the context in which it has been composed. Shostakovich didn't write his 11th symphony for a tribesman from the Papuan Rainforest, nor, for example, for a middle-aged Englishman living long after 1957, with no personal experience of Russia or the Russian revolution (or, possibly, the Hungarian Uprising of 1956). He wrote it for those who would recognise and understand either the matters of the 1905 event, or the 1956 event, and probably recognise the several popular tunes that it incorporated. I don't doubt that he would be pleased that many people for whom the work was not intended have enjoyed and continue to enjoy the symphony, but he didn't aim it at me, nor at many of TC's members.

Similarly with the 7th symphony.


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## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> If one claims that Shostakovich's 7th symphony is the greatest symphony of the 20th century and only lists non-musical reasons as to why one would make that claim


who does it so?



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Music does not have the power to describe or convey anything other than itself


music does have and should have every power unless you castrate its creation process from the start by promoting the idea of 'meaninglessness' among the composers.

PS:
man different from animal because man search for *meanings* and attribute meanings to everything he create and see, that is why man is God-like.


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## Rangstrom

Maw Odyssey, really rewards multiple hearings.


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## Guest

sharik said:


> in my opinion it is impossible for music not to be about some thing.


That's because, I'd guess, you don't really think music is all that powerful or interesting. It is only powerful or interesting if it can somehow be made to do something unmusical. Music qua music? Naw. Not good enough.

I apologize if I have misrepresented your position.



sharik said:


> music does have and should have every power unless you castrate its creation process from the start by promoting the idea of 'meaninglessness' among the composers.


I don't think anyone has promoted the idea the music is meaningless, however. Music is quite clearly meaningful. But it's meanings are musical meanings, not linguistic ones. If music and language conveyed music in the same way, there would be no need for both. They do not, so there is.

Putting them together is interesting. Can one increase the power of either by combining them? Composers have been fascinated by that question for centuries. Poets however? Um, not so much.

Berlioz thought of himself as an opera composer. And most of his other works use texts to a great extent. But he was also quite committed to the idea that music is sufficient on its own, that its powers are not linguistic or descriptive powers. (He used the love scene from Romeo et Juliette, which is purely instrumental, to illustrate this. I hesitate to mention this here, but "oh well." It's not as if anyone is ever going to make a statement that no one will be able to miscontrue--nor would that, I would say, even be desirable.)


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## sharik

some guy said:


> I apologize if I have misrepresented your position


i accept your apologies.


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## sharik

some guy said:


> Music is quite clearly meaningful. But it's meanings are musical meanings, not linguistic ones


as i said, tell that to Wagner, guys, tell that to Wagner's.


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## Guest

Wagner would disagree with us, it's true.

But then Wagner was clearly a person who did not believe in the power of music.


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## arpeggio

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> And then there is the snare drum beat in a particular point in the coda of the first movement of Mahler's 7th that sounds similar but used for an entirely different and purely musical reason, also in Ravel's Bolero there is a continuous snare drum beat used not to describe anything military or warlike at all.
> 
> You said "to start with," so please do go on.


There is also the great snare drum part in Nielson's _Fifth._ Fot the record this is my favorite 20th Century Symphony. I am trying to figure out what I am proving by admitting this.


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## sharik

some guy said:


> Wagner was clearly a person who did not believe in the power of music


wait.. the talk is of *classical music* not about some voodoo ritual (jazz) , and classical music is a product of human thinking process directed by *human will* not merely some hips shakin' etc.

classical music has its roots in Christianity, which implies it to be dealing with search of the meaning of Life.
music in itself can not and may not have power, unless a man ordains it to.


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## Blancrocher

sharik said:


> as i said, tell that to Wagner, guys, tell that to Wagner's.


He wouldn't have been able to convince Wagner of the rightness of his belief in absolute music, and more than we could have convinced Adorno, Clement Greenberg, or G.E. Lessing to mix things up a little. Still, everyone has made good points and with panache, so no harm done.

p.s. If it counts as a symphony, Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms" is clearly the best of the 20th century.


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## Guest

sharik said:


> when you hear the 7th you would well be able to tell that it was about war, and given the timeline, the Second World War.


Nope. Not even now, listening to it with the clarion tones of this thread booming away in the background. (Oh, wait. Those are timpani. Put there by Shostakovich. My mistake.)

Anyway. No war. No WWII even. Just a tune repeated too many times for my taste.

In short, I can't think of war even when both sharik and Shostakovich are begging me to think about war. Just the way it is for me.


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## sharik

some guy said:


> I can't think of war even when both sharik and Shostakovich are begging me to think about war


and you do have a right to that.


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## arpeggio

*College Experiment*

Back in college a group of us had an experiment. I was a graduate assistant helping with a music appreciation class. We played programmatic works for some of the students and asked them what they they thought. Some interesting responses. One person thought the Harris _Third Symphony_ reminded them of King Arthur and Medieval England. (We did not use _1812 Overture_. Too many were already familiar with it.)

The only music they got right was _The Storm from Peter Grimes_ and Honegger's _Pacific 231_. (Note: Ironically Honegger claim he was not thinking of a train when he composed the work.)


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## Blancrocher

That reminds me of a wine-tasting event I went to in college, arpeggio. I used to believe that everyone's taste and opinion was valid, but I was forced to reevaluate that opinion! chacun à son goût?--I don't think so! 

:lol:


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## Winterreisender

My favourite is Sibelius 5th. If that isn't 20th century enough for you, then I would vote Gorecki 3rd. But Sibelius 5th is among my favourites of any era.


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## neoshredder

I'll take Sibelius's 3rd.


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## LancsMan

Well if Mahler's ninth (a symphony about death?) is forbidden then I'll opt for the life affirming Nielsen fifth.


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## BurningDesire

sharik said:


> wait.. the talk is of *classical music* not about some voodoo ritual (jazz) , and classical music is a product of human thinking process directed by *human will* not merely some hips shakin' etc.
> 
> classical music has its roots in Christianity, which implies it to be dealing with search of the meaning of Life.
> music in itself can not and may not have power, unless a man ordains it to.


Nope. It has its roots in the Greeks, who predate Jesus, and all his pretend followers. Also calling jazz some voodoo ritual is about as insulting as referring to classical music as some christian ritual.


----------



## moody

Partita said:


> I would guess that most people aren't interested in the wider political/social circumstances in which any particular work (symphony or whatever) was constructed. Except for a vague interest in the purely historical issues, it doesn't concern me what was going on in Leningrad when Symphony No 7 was written. I quite like the work in question but I don't like it any more or any less due to these circumstances. I don't see classical music as a suitable vehicle by which to arouse the sympathies of the listener towards any cause, or to act a reminder of any historical events.


I find this a most strange post,you are missing the point in regard of a whole slew of music. Also if you knew what was going on in Leningrad at the time it would explain a lot,but I can hardly believe that you are at all aware.


----------



## DavidA

BurningDesire said:


> Nope. It has its roots in the Greeks, who predate Jesus, and all his pretend followers. Also calling jazz some voodoo ritual is about as insulting as referring to classical music as some christian ritual.


I've heard some sweeping statements in my time but really!


----------



## sharik

BurningDesire said:


> It has its roots in the Greeks


greeks' have nothing to do with classical music that in fact comes from monk chants and monasteries.



BurningDesire said:


> calling jazz some voodoo ritual is about as insulting as referring to classical music as some christian ritual


that's fine by me, jazz is a voodoo and classical music is a service in the name of God.


----------



## Guest

moody said:


> I find this a most strange post,you are missing the point in regard of a whole slew of music. Also if you knew what was going on in Leningrad at the time it would explain a lot,but I can hardly believe that you are at all aware.


Of course I know what was going in Leningrad at the time. It's the easiest thing in the world to find out, next to falling off a log. But I couldn't less about it, as I'm not interested in what the Nazis or Russians were up to at the time.

I have explained that, in general, I do not find the political background to the composition of any musical work to be of any relevance to my general liking of it. I doubt that many do. The same applies to compositions by composers who were deaf, died young, were anti-Semitic, were murderers, wife-beaters, or alcoholics, etc. None of this matters a jot to me in forming a view about my liking or not of their works.

It's up to others if they wish to worry their head about things of this nature in forming their musical opinions, but I do not expect them to try to impose their predilections on me by suggesting that my views are "strange" or "missing the point".


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> It's up to others if they wish to worry their head about things of this nature in forming their musical opinions, but I do not expect them to try to impose their predilections on me by suggesting that my views are "strange" or "missing the point".


You're a member of an online discussion board.

You should expect all sorts of impositions all the time.:lol:

(Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, however.)

((In fact, those who do....))


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> greeks' have nothing to do with classical music that in fact comes from monk chants and monasteries.


You might be confused: classical music began in ancient Greece (that is where the term "classical" (meaning "of or relating to ancient Greek or Latin literature, art or culture") and the same term as applied to the music of which you are referring overlap), modern music _notation_ comes from written Gregorian chants. The original notation for many Gregorian chants began life as markings above the text which denote the musical contour (a clear influence from ancient Greek music which was notated this way as well). These markings soon began being placed on a single line which always represented the same pitch (the earliest form of a staff, or stave) and as this notation grew more complex, more lines were added until 5 lines representing different pitches became standard.



sharik said:


> that's fine by me, jazz is a voodoo and classical music is a service in the name of God.


Voodoo (according to my dictionary): a religious cult practised in the Caribbean and the southern states of the US, a combination of African magical and religious rites and Roman Catholicism (is Roman Catholicism not something brought by "God?"*) "Voodoo" is often used as a harmful insult with racist connotations, please be careful how you speak. 

Jazz does not come from the Caribbean, but it does have its roots in the incredibly rhythmically complex traditional music from various African cultures. When Africans were kidnapped and brought to the US to be sold as slaves they brought this (music) part of their culture with them. They sung about life, which is what they would have sung back in their home countries, and due to their life as slaves being pretty much downright horrible (just one of the seemingly infinite examples of white people being infamous for their inhumane treatment of others) and the fact that they hardly had any instruments (they might have picked up some old guitars or banjos, and if they were lucky they may have had access to an old piano) but what they did have were their voices. A vocal style called the Blues soon emerged and Jazz was just one of the genres which came from it.

*written in quotation marks because I am referring to God of whom you speak, someone not believed in by all.


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> I would guess that most people aren't interested in the wider political/social circumstances in which any particular work (symphony or whatever) was constructed. Except for a vague interest in the purely historical issues, it doesn't concern me what was going on in Leningrad when Symphony No 7 was written. I quite like the work in question but I don't like it any more or any less due to these circumstances. I don't see classical music as a suitable vehicle by which to arouse the sympathies of the listener towards any cause, or to act a reminder of any historical events.





Partita said:


> Of course I know what was going in Leningrad at the time. It's the easiest thing in the world to find out, next to falling off a log. But I couldn't less about it, as I'm not interested in what the Nazis or Russians were up to at the time.
> 
> I have explained that, in general, I do not find the political background to the composition of any musical work to be of any relevance to my general liking of it. I doubt that many do. The same applies to compositions by composers who were deaf, died young, were anti-Semitic, were murderers, wife-beaters, or alcoholics, etc. None of this matters a jot to me in forming a view about my liking or not of their works.
> 
> It's up to others if they wish to worry their head about things of this nature in forming their musical opinions, but I do not expect them to try to impose their predilections on me by suggesting that my views are "strange" or "missing the point".


You _are _missing 'the point' if you're not distinguishing between the historical background, and historical "content". The "point" being made is that DS explicitly wrote the 7th "about" contemporary events (and also, that the music does indeed "represent" or "evoke" things relevant to those events), not that historical background is generally relevant to the enjoyment of a work.


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## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> You might be confused: classical music began in ancient Greece (that is where the term "classical" (meaning "of or relating to ancient Greek or Latin literature, art or culture") and the same term as applied to the music of which you are referring overlap)


it is you who are mistaken, for i did not speak of designation, i spoke of *meanings* actually because for example none of 19th century composers thought himself a 'classical' one, and the term 'classical music' in this case concerns neither Ancient Greeks nor Latin stuff... today we use a term 'classical music' only as it has been established in the 20th century in relation of a 18/19th century heritage that presents a ground-breaking *revolutionary* method of creating a music based on a *concept* or an idea, not just another song or tune.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Voodoo (according to my dictionary): a religious cult practised in the Caribbean and the southern states of the US


come on... i couldn't care less about voodoo as well as jazz, call them all anything you like.


----------



## Guest

sharik said:


> come on... i couldn't care less about voodoo as well as jazz, call them all anything you like.


Please sharik, give it a rest. It's not necessary to make disparaging remarks about jazz to assert your points about 20th C symphonies.


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## sharik

Partita said:


> I'm not interested in what the Nazis or Russians were up to at the time


it wasn't just only Nazis/Russia rumble then, the entire World was involved in that, in fact WWII was the turning point for the entire humanity (although i'm not sure was it for better or worse).


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## sharik

MacLeod said:


> It's not necessary to make disparaging remarks about jazz


sorry if i offended you jazzmen.


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> You _are _missing 'the point' if you're not distinguishing between the historical background, and historical "content". The "point" being made is that DS explicitly wrote the 7th "about" contemporary events (and also, that the music does indeed "represent" or "evoke" things relevant to those events), not that historical background is generally relevant to the enjoyment of a work.


I am not missing any point. I understand sufficient of both the historical content and background of this symphony, and none of this makes any difference to me. What did I write that gave you cause to assume that I hadn't taken into account both features? If you think otherwise I would appreciate an explanation of the ways in which your assessment of the work is enhanced by a detailed knowledge of its wartime content.

In general I consider it to be pretentious to assert that an extra layer of enjoyment of any musical piece is available by understanding in detail the historical content of the piece. If you do believe anything like that, how about a sung Mass? Do you believe that only practising Roman Catholics can fully appreciate this kind of work, presumably because they actually believe all the words that are spoken?

The supposed link between a piece of music and its programmatic theme is often tenuous. Take the case of tone poems. Do you believe that full enjoyment of this type of work is critically dependent on people taking the trouble to explore their programmatic meaning? Consider for example Liszt's tone poem 'Les préludes', which is probably the most famous of all of Liszt's thirteen tone poems. It is a very enjoyable work that anyone should be able to appreciate without knowing anything at all about the "inner meaning". I would guess that many people don't actually know what it's supposed to be all about. If you have not heard it, I would recommend you acquire a decent copy, then listen to it a few times without reading anything about its content/background. After that read all about it, judge whether or not you like it any more, and report later if you wish on your experiences. I reckon I know your answer.

Another example is "The Moldau", which is the second tone poem in the set from Smetana's Ma Vlast. It is the name of the biggest river in Czechoslovakia, but as far as I'm concerned it could be about any river, or no river at all. Again, if you know the work in question it and like it please explain how much of this liking is due to any reminiscence it has for you of this specific river in Czechoslovakia or the surrounding countryside through which it flows. I'd be really fascinated to hear.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> it is you who are mistaken, for i did not speak of designation, i spoke of *meanings* actually because for example none of 19th century composers thought himself a 'classical' one, and the term 'classical music' in this case concerns neither Ancient Greeks nor Latin stuff... today we use a term 'classical music' only as it has been established in the 20th century in relation of a 18/19th century heritage that presents a ground-breaking *revolutionary* method of creating a music based on a *concept* or an idea, not just another song or tune.


I am mistaken? I have been studying classical music and its history for most of my life, the sources I use are textbooks that are used in universities and are held in high regard by many music teachers. These secondary sources, as well as a number of primary sources that I can get access to are the main sources of everything I know about music. Of course, I can't say I know everything because I don't, but I do know that what I say has at least some merit.

Perhaps you are misunderstanding me, the history of western classical music as we know it today began way before Gregorian chant. Perhaps you might find interesting what this website (and the book, Norton History of Western Music) has to say.


----------



## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> the history of western classical music as we know it today began way before Gregorian chant


the point is, Gregorian chant can not be considered 'classical music' either. Christianity is only the source where Classical Music takes its beginning - 'classical' in terms of what we call for example the movies _The Birth Of A Nation_ or _The Battleship Potemkin_ that is 'modern to an extent it becomes *eternal* i.e. encompassing the past, present and future' not what you attempt to put across.


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## dgee

sharik said:


> the point is, Gregorian chant can not be considered 'classical music' either. Christianity is only the source where Classical Music takes its beginning - 'classical' in terms of what we call for example the movies _The Birth Of A Nation_ or _The Battleship Potemkin_ that is 'modern to an extent it becomes *eternal* i.e. encompassing the past, present and future' not what you attempt to put across.


Thereby capping off a whole series of irrefutable statements of fact and the impeccable logic that links them. Case closed!


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> the point is, Gregorian chant can not be considered 'classical music' either. Christianity is only the source where Classical Music takes its beginning - 'classical' in terms of what we call for example the movies _The Birth Of A Nation_ or _The Battleship Potemkin_ that is 'modern to an extent it becomes *eternal* i.e. encompassing the past, present and future' not what you attempt to put across.


It _is_ classical music! It is not part of the "common practice" era though (ie 17th to 19th centuries, or perhaps I could even say purely the 18th and 19th centuries as the revival of earlier Baroque is more recent and not as often performed in the 20th century as other styles).

Pray tell me, what is "classical music" to you? It _seems_ starkly different to what scholars have put forth.


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## sharik

dgee said:


> Thereby capping off a whole series of irrefutable statements of fact and the impeccable logic that links them


yes indeed Classical Music can deal with any subject including Ancient Greeks like for example Strauss' _Elektra_ but the substance it consists of is strictly *creationist* not pagan or anything else.


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## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> what is "classical music" to you?


*eternal* music.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> starkly different to what scholars have put forth


scholars?.. my scholars are Wagner and Mussorgsky, and i've no idea as to who are yours.


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## SimonNZ

sharik said:


> the point is, Gregorian chant can not be considered 'classical music' either. Christianity is only the source where Classical Music takes its beginning - 'classical' in terms of what we call for example the movies _The Birth Of A Nation_ or _The Battleship Potemkin_ that is 'modern to an extent it becomes *eternal* i.e. encompassing the past, present and future' not what you attempt to put across.


Is this yet another example of confusing "classic" and "classical"? Best one I've seen yet.


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## sharik

SimonNZ said:


> Is this yet another example of confusing "classic" and "classical"? Best one I've seen yet.


as you might noticed i live in Russia where 'classic' attributed to things most important and influential, whereas Ancient Greeks and Romans referred to as 'ancient'.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> *eternal* music.
> 
> scholars?.. my scholars are Wagner and Mussorgsky, and i've no idea as to who are yours.


Music that lasts for an eternity? 

And Wagner? Just another example of your inconsistency! It was _he_ who was inspired by ancient Greek concepts of music, art and performance which enabled him to come up with gesamtkunstwerk! His writings are, however, heavily biased and often don't necessarily deal with as many facts as importantly as his opinions on music and religion.

Tell me about what you have learnt from Mussorgsky.

Usually I find that musicologists have a better reputation. I could recommend some textbooks and websites if you want.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> *eternal* music.
> 
> scholars?.. my scholars are Wagner and Mussorgsky, and i've no idea as to who are yours.


Music that lasts for an eternity? 

And Wagner? Just another example of your inconsistency! It was _he_ who was inspired by ancient Greek concepts of music, art and performance which enabled him to come up with gesamtkunstwerk! His writings are, however, heavily biased and often don't necessarily deal with as many facts as importantly as his opinions on music and religion.

Tell me about what you have learnt from Mussorgsky.

Usually I find that musicologists have a better reputation. I could recommend some textbooks and websites if you want.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

The idea of an individual citing the Greatest symphony, or indeed the Greatest anything, is a personal choice and based on what level exactly? If I were a musicologist I might choose x or y but that'd still not equate to Greatest but simply Best imho as not even an expert can set Greatest on a podium without a firm basis and substantial support from a host of others. As to my favourite, well that'd depend on a variety of things. Today I like my Karajan Mahler 4 from 1979 best as it's an easy pleasing listen and a breath of fresh air after my Kaplan Mahler 2 from 1988 besides which the 4th just made it into the 20th century.


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## sharik

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Music that lasts for an eternity?


music that matters for eternity.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> And Wagner? Just another example of your inconsistency! It was _he_ who was inspired by ancient Greek concepts of music


read posts thoroughly before replying... i had mentioned Richard Strauss and his _Elektra_ an overtly anti-Christian opera but all the more Creationist because Strauss as well as Wagner builts his own *world* and vision there using meanings and emotional messages expressed in the language of music.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Tell me about what you have learnt from Mussorgsky


ever heard of _Boris Godunov_?.. *conscience* - that is what you learn from it.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Usually I find that musicologists have a better reputation


because they do nothing except talk?


----------



## Garlic

I can't for the life of me figure out what your last few posts are about. I'm trying but they just seem inscrutable to me. What is "creationist" music? Why is Elektra anti-Christian? What does Christianity have to do with anything? What is your point?


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> I am not missing any point. I understand sufficient of both the historical content and background of this symphony, and none of this makes any difference to me. What did I write that gave you cause to assume that I hadn't taken into account both features? If you think otherwise I would appreciate an explanation of the ways in which your assessment of the work is enhanced by a detailed knowledge of its wartime content.
> 
> First, I said 'if you're not distinguishing between the historical background, and historical "content"'. If you are distinguishing, then there's no debate between us. However, it appeared to me that you weren't. Specifically, you said,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _I would guess that most people aren't interested in the wider political/social circumstances in which any particular work (symphony or whatever) was constructed._
> 
> 
> 
> and
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _I have explained that, in general, I do not find the political background to the composition of any musical work to be of any relevance to my general liking of it._
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> In other words, you seem only to want to discuss whether the historical background, context, circumstances in which a piece of music is written is pertinent to enjoyment or understanding.
> 
> In general I consider it to be pretentious to assert that an extra layer of enjoyment of any musical piece is available by understanding in detail the historical content of the piece. If you do believe anything like that, how about a sung Mass? Do you believe that only practising Roman Catholics can fully appreciate this kind of work, presumably because they actually believe all the words that are spoken?
> 
> My point actually had nothing to do with either enjoyment or understanding, only the contested idea that the music can describe, or contain other "stuff" - such as the first movement of the 7th symphony somehow directly conveying a sense of military activity.
Click to expand...

As for the rest of your post - such as whether I enjoy the Moldau better because I think it is "about" the river - I've argued these points elsewhere (though not with reference to the Moldau, which I've never heard) and don't propose to repeat them. Suffice to say that I believe that music can be "about" stuff. I am well aware that others disagree, but it was not my intention to revisit the debate here.


----------



## Guest

sharik said:


> sorry if i offended you jazzmen.


Thanks for the apology. However, I'm not a jazzman. I don't play it, I don't listen to it, I don't really like it.


----------



## Blancrocher

Since Delicious Manager kindly mentioned Corigliano's 1st Symphony on his short list of great 20th-century symphonies, I'm giving it my first listen in years. It's a powerful work.


----------



## Guest

Macleod said:


> My point actually had nothing to do with either enjoyment or understanding, only the contested idea that the music can describe, or contain other "stuff" - such as the first movement of the 7th symphony somehow directly conveying a sense of military activity.


If that is your point, I never questioned that Shostakovich wrote his 7th Symphony about the events in Leningrad during WWII. Where did you get that idea from?

All I said was that the subject matter of the symphony made no difference to my enjoyment of it. I wrote: _ 'Except for a vague interest in the purely historical issues, it doesn't concern me what was going on in Leningrad when Symphony No 7 was written.'_ It would seem that you have misconstrued my intended meaning.

Pity you haven't heard "The Moldau" or "Les preludes". Tone peoms don't get much more famous than these. When you get round to listening to these works, perhaps you'd consider how the inherent "stuff" in them you talk about strikes you. As I have said, the links to the real world of quite a few tone poems is not obvious, and even when it is clearer it doesn't necessarily enhance one's enjoyment of the work in question.


----------



## PetrB

Partita said:


> If that is your point, I never questioned that Shostakovich wrote his 7th Symphony about the events in Leningrad during WWII. Where did you get that idea from?
> 
> All I said was that the subject matter of the symphony made no difference to my enjoyment of it. I wrote: _ 'Except for a vague interest in the purely historical issues, it doesn't concern me what was going on in Leningrad when Symphony No 7 was written.'_ It would seem that you have misconstrued my intended meaning.
> 
> Pity you haven't heard "The Moldau" or "Les preludes". Tone peoms don't get much more famous than these. When you get round to listening to these works, perhaps you'd consider how the inherent "stuff" in them you talk about strikes you. As I have said, the links to the real world of quite a few tone poems is not obvious, and even when it is clearer it doesn't necessarily enhance one's enjoyment of the work in question.


"In autumn 1857, in Franz Brendel's Anregungen für Kunst, Leben und Wissenschaft ("Hints for Art, Life and Science"), Felix Draeseke published an essay with an analysis of Les préludes. He presumed that the preface was the program after which the work had been composed. The essay was read and approved by Liszt.[6] Notwithstanding this, the preface, only added when the composition was already finished,[7] cannot be regarded as source of Liszt's inspiration while he was composing the work. Also questionable is whether or to which extent he was influenced by the ode by Lamartine. According to Peter Raabe (1931), Liszt's symphonic poem had nothing at all to do with it.[8] Raabe's position was shared by Emile Haraszti (1953). Both authors claimed that Liszt had taken one of his older works, an overture for an unpublished cycle of male chorus pieces Les quatre élémens, and later added the title "Les préludes", referencing to Lamartine, to it."
~ Franz Liszt, Les Preludes; Wikipedia


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> If that is your point, I never questioned that Shostakovich wrote his 7th Symphony about the events in Leningrad during WWII. Where did you get that idea from?


Your posts, which made no reference to it at all. Why else would I have posed the conditional 'if' in my post #134??


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

sharik said:


> because they do nothing except talk?


because they research before they do the talking.


----------



## Guest

PetrB said:


> "In autumn 1857, in Franz Brendel's Anregungen für Kunst, Leben und Wissenschaft ("Hints for Art, Life and Science"), Felix Draeseke published an essay with an analysis of Les préludes. He presumed that the preface was the program after which the work had been composed. The essay was read and approved by Liszt.[6] Notwithstanding this, the preface, only added when the composition was already finished,[7] cannot be regarded as source of Liszt's inspiration while he was composing the work. Also questionable is whether or to which extent he was influenced by the ode by Lamartine. According to Peter Raabe (1931), Liszt's symphonic poem had nothing at all to do with it.[8] Raabe's position was shared by Emile Haraszti (1953). Both authors claimed that Liszt had taken one of his older works, an overture for an unpublished cycle of male chorus pieces Les quatre élémens, and later added the title "Les préludes", referencing to Lamartine, to it."
> ~ Franz Liszt, Les Preludes; Wikipedia


You haven't offered any explanation as to why you quoted this small portion of text on Liszt's 'Les préludes' from Wikipedia. The full text from Wikipedia reveals an even more complicated state of confusion surrounding the supposed background and meaning of this work.

It was no accident that I chose 'Les préludes' to illustrate the point I was trying to make. I deliberately chose it specifically in the light of the Wikipedia article. I suspected that is where someone would go for further advice on what this work is supposed to be about, but the story is so garbled that I could see that there was little chance of anyone making sense of it and pretending that they too could appreciate the work's inner meaning based on this article.

The only reason I added a second famous tone poem, namely Smetana's 'The Moldau', was in case the person to whom my response was addressed hadn't heard 'Les préludes. As it turns out, he says that he hasn't heard either of these famous tone poems, and declined to offer any comments on how the subject matter of either of them affected his assessment/enjoyment. I made these suggestions because I understand that this is an issue on which he has some views, and on which he attempted to pull me up.

My point is that while tone poems specifically embody a theme of some description it's not always clear what that theme is, and in any event there is no reason to attach any greater value to any such work depending on how successfully the intended thematic element is achieved. The same applies to Shostakovich's Symphony No 7, in this case the events in Leningrad during WWII, which is where I came in.


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> he says that he hasn't heard either of these famous tone poems, and declined to offer any comments on how the subject matter of either of them affected his assessment/enjoyment.


Well I would "decline to comment" on something I've never heard, wouldn't I?


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> Well I would "decline to comment" on something I've never heard, wouldn't I?


Yes, I explained that the reason you declined to comment was because you haven't heard them. You could of course acquire a copy of each and then comment, but I suspect that you have probably twigged that you won't get anywhere and it's better to take the soft option.


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> Yes, I explained that the reason you declined to comment was because you haven't heard them. You could of course acquire a copy of each and then comment, but I suspect that you have probably twigged that you won't get anywhere and it's better to take the soft option.


So, encourage me: why are you suggesting that I should get these particular pieces of music? So far, I've not understood the point you wish to make.


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> Your posts, which made no reference to it at all. Why else would I have posed the conditional 'if' in my post #134??


If by "it" you mean Leningrad, please refer to my first post, No 100, where I wrote:

_'I would guess that most people aren't interested in the wider political/social circumstances in which any particular work (symphony or whatever) was constructed. Except for a vague interest in the purely historical issues, it doesn't concern me what was going on in Leningrad when Symphony No 7 was written..._

Isn't this clear enough for you?


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> So, encourage me: why are you suggesting that I should get these particular pieces of music? So far, I've not understood the point you wish to make.


If you don't understand the relevance of tone poems to this discussion then I'm afraid I can't help you, and I suggest you seek advice elsewhere.


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> If by "it" you mean Leningrad, please refer to my first post, No 100, where I wrote:
> 
> _'I would guess that most people aren't interested in the wider political/social circumstances in which any particular work (symphony or whatever) was constructed. Except for a vague interest in the purely historical issues, it doesn't concern me what was going on in Leningrad when Symphony No 7 was written..._
> 
> Isn't this clear enough for you?


No. By 'it' I meant the idea that music can be 'about' something.



Partita said:


> If you don't understand the relevance of tone poems to this discussion then I'm afraid I can't help you, and I suggest you seek advice elsewhere.


I thought the discussion was about the 'greatest' 20th C symphony, and whether a symphony can lay claim to greatness on the grounds that it is about momentous events (see the debate started between Sharik and Crudblud around #57).

The discussion is not about tone poems.


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> No. By 'it' I meant the idea that music can be 'about' something.


Yes but that "something" in this context referred to the events in Leningrad in WWII, and that is what my comment related to explicitly if you read my first post at No 100. I can't see what you are going on about unless you are deliberately nit-picking.



> I thought the discussion was about the 'greatest' 20th C symphony, and whether a symphony can lay claim to greatness on the grounds that it is about momentous events (see the debate started between Sharik and Crudblud around #57).
> 
> The discussion is not about tone poems.


I thought it was very clear that I was picking up on your theme regarding the idea that music can be 'about' something. Rather than continue to focus the discussion solely on Shostakovich's Symphony No 7, which is all about Leningrad, it is possibly more productive to generalise it to cover the class of musical works written specifically to incorporate an idea, or theme of some kind, namely tone poem or 'symphonic poem' to use the alternative title.

The two tone poems that I selected are very famous ones, and I was simply asking you in what ways their respective themes came across to you, and whether or not this affected your overall assessment of them. However, it would appear that you are not familiar with either of the tone poems I selected, nor possibly with tone poems in general.

If the latter is the case you might find it of benefit to acquire more knowledge before embarking on any further theorising in this area. It took me several years to acquire a minimum of information before I felt confident to venture opinions on topics as lofty as you appear to aspire to. Of course, you are perfectly entitled to comment as you see fit on any topic you like but don't be surprised if you find yourself occasionally getting into deep water, and unable to develop your answers through lack of knowledge.


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> you might find it of benefit to acquire more knowledge about the musical repertoire in general before embarking on any further theorising in this area. It took me several years to acquire a minimum of information before I felt confident to venture opinions on topics as lofty as you appear to aspire to. Of course, you are perfectly entitled to comment as you see fit on any topic you like but don't be surprised if you find yourself occasionally getting into deep water.


I'm so glad that there are members around here that are ready, willing and able to put amateurs like me in my place.


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> I'm so glad that there are members around here that are ready, willing and able to put amateurs like me in my place.


I'm responding to your points in the most effective way that I can in order to be as helpful as possible.


----------



## isridgewell

Very hard to answer, this is my area of interest so:

Shostakovich 4, 8 or 11
Messsian Turangalila
Hindemith Symphony in Eb
Henze Symphony No 7
Roy Harris Symphony No 3
Robert Simpson Symphony No 9
Tippet Symphony No 4
Ives Symphony No 4
Martinu Symphony No6


----------



## Skilmarilion

I would be inclined to consider the following five:

Mahler 9
Sibelius 2, 3
Rachmaninov 2
Gorecki 3

The trouble is these works are so varied that attempting to compare them would be a futile exercise.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Bruckner's 9th has to be in there


----------



## Guest

Well, it's clear that the twentieth century is not very well beloved.

We've spent a good deal of time--on this and on some other threads around the interweb--making sure that the best symphony of the twentieth century has to be something stylistically alien to any of the century's unique contributions to musical art.

Not good enough.

It was inevitable that after Mahler and Shostakovich and Sibelius, the only way to nominate a suitable sounding work would be to go outside the chronological bounds of the century and nominate a work from the 19th century.

Well, why not Bruckner's eighth, too? Or Dvorak's ninth? Plenty of Brahms and Tchaikovsky, too, no?

Hell, let's just say that Mozart's 40th is the greatest symphony of the twentieth century and be done with it....


----------



## Blancrocher

some guy said:


> Well, it's clear that the twentieth century is not very well beloved.
> 
> We've spent a good deal of time--on this and on some other threads around the interweb--making sure that the best symphony of the twentieth century has to be something stylistically alien to any of the century's unique contributions to musical art.
> 
> Not good enough.


OK, OK, you're right. Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie is the greatest of the 20th century.


----------



## neoshredder

some guy said:


> Well, it's clear that the twentieth century is not very well beloved.
> 
> We've spent a good deal of time--on this and on some other threads around the interweb--making sure that the best symphony of the twentieth century has to be something stylistically alien to any of the century's unique contributions to musical art.
> 
> Not good enough.
> 
> It was inevitable that after Mahler and Shostakovich and Sibelius, the only way to nominate a suitable sounding work would be to go outside the chronological bounds of the century and nominate a work from the 19th century.
> 
> Well, why not Bruckner's eighth, too? Or Dvorak's ninth? Plenty of Brahms and Tchaikovsky, too, no?
> 
> Hell, let's just say that Mozart's 40th is the greatest symphony of the twentieth century and be done with it....


Well people want what they want.


----------



## quack

Well I assumed nominating Bruckner was a dating mistake but to be fair it wasn't played until the 20thC and completed by other hands much later.

Thanks for the mention of the Corigliano Symphony peoples, hadn't heard that one got to give it a listen.


----------



## Mahlerian

some guy said:


> Well, it's clear that the twentieth century is not very well beloved.
> 
> We've spent a good deal of time--on this and on some other threads around the interweb--making sure that the best symphony of the twentieth century has to be something stylistically alien to any of the century's unique contributions to musical art.


There's actually a good reason for this. Many of the "progressive" composers of the 20th century specifically avoided the symphony as a genre. I've heard numerous orchestral works from the post-WWII era, many large in scope, but only a handful of those were called "symphony", which carries with it certain baggage.

In terms of form, one could easily call Berg's "Three Orchestral Pieces" a symphony (Introduction, Dance movement, March-allegro), but he didn't, so it's normally not thought of as one. Avoiding the name symphony has given rise to the whole "Concerto for Orchestra" genre (Bartok, Lutoslawski, Carter).


----------



## ShropshireMoose

sharik said:


> as you might noticed i live in Russia where 'classic' attributed to things most important and influential, whereas Ancient Greeks and Romans referred to as 'ancient'.


If ancient Greeks and Romans aren't important with regard to the society that we currently live in, then I really don't know who or what are!


----------



## ShropshireMoose

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Music that lasts for an eternity? :confused
> 
> Usually I find that musicologists have a better reputation. I could recommend some textbooks and websites if you want.


Sir Thomas Beecham: "Musicologists know everything about ology and nothing about music." I'm with Beecham on this one!


----------



## ShropshireMoose

Back to the thread! I'll take 20th Century as being just that, in a literal sense. On that basis- since it covers such a wide variety of styles and permutations- the choice of just one symphony is impossible, as it would be for any century since the symphony began, so I'll name those from the said century that I couldn't do without:

Elgar: 1 and 2
Mahler: 9
Vaughan Williams: 4, 5 and 6
Moeran
Shostakovich: 6, 9 and 10
Sibelius: 5 and 7
Walton: 1
Alwyn: 3

There may be others, but these are the ones that, in a semi-inebriated state (I've had wine with lunch) immediately spring to mind.


----------



## Art Rock

Always happy to see someone else mention Moeran.


----------



## ShropshireMoose

Actually, looking at some of the posts on this thread puts me in mind of what Howard Spring has one of his characters say in his novel "The Houses in Between":

"We were reformers, and oh Sarah, how I've come to distrust reformers! So often reform is nothing but an attempt to turn people into what we are ourselves, so pleased we are with our own perfections. However odd people's shapes may be, we think our own tailor is the only one for them. And then, you know, reformers are often so full of hate. They hate everybody who disagrees with them, and they even come to hate the people who don't want to be reformed."

Perceptive man, Mr. Spring. I hope that people still read his books.


----------



## Guest

Mahlerian said:


> There's actually a good reason for this. Many of the "progressive" composers of the 20th century specifically avoided the symphony as a genre.


Hear hear! I refer the honourable Gentleman to my previous reply (#95)


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Does anyone here like Humphrey Searle?


----------



## spradlig

That's a good choice, and I agree with your comment. Shostakovich's own 5th and Prokofiev's 5th would make good runners-up.


KenOC said:


> Just one please (and excluding that Gustav fellow -- I mean *real* 20th century).
> 
> My vote goes to Shostakovich's 10th, a big, brawny, serious, and highly original work of the highest quality. Any close runners-up are also Soviet.
> 
> Yours? You can argue with the rules as well, if you like!


----------



## Guest

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Does anyone here like Humphrey Searle?


Yes.

_____________________________________


----------



## Prodromides

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Does anyone here like Humphrey Searle?


I love both his concert works and his film music.


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> you might find it of benefit to acquire more knowledge before embarking on any further theorising in this area. It took me several years to acquire a minimum of information before I felt confident to venture opinions on topics as lofty as you appear to aspire to. Of course, you are perfectly entitled to comment as you see fit on any topic you like but don't be surprised if you find yourself occasionally getting into deep water, and unable to develop your answers through lack of knowledge.


On further reflection, I'd like to ask why you think this is a 'lofty' topic? Where the experience of music is concerned, I don't think there is such a thing. I listen to music; I respond to it; I reflect on it; I might make a judgement about it - whether a personal subjective preference, or a subjective value judgement. I can also do some background research, which may or may not help me understand or enjoy the music more (it's not a necessity).

Of course, I am not able to use technical vocabulary to be able to explain or analyse the structure of any particular piece, but that does not prevent me from developing a layman's appreciation and an ability to participate in the slightly fruitless discussion about the 'greatest symphony'.


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> On further reflection, I'd like to ask why you think this is a 'lofty' topic? Where the experience of music is concerned, I don't think there is such a thing. I listen to music; I respond to it; I reflect on it; I might make a judgement about it - whether a personal subjective preference, or a subjective value judgement. I can also do some background research, which may or may not help me understand or enjoy the music more (it's not a necessity).
> 
> Of course, I am not able to use technical vocabulary to be able to explain or analyse the structure of any particular piece, but that does not prevent me from developing a layman's appreciation and an ability to participate in the slightly fruitless discussion about the 'greatest symphony'.


That's easy. If you refer back to my post from which you selectively quoted, you will see that I made an important caveat prior to the section you quoted. The full relevant text is:

_'*However, it would appear that you are not familiar with either of the tone poems I selected, nor possibly with tone poems in general. If the latter is the case* you might find it of benefit to acquire more knowledge before embarking on any further theorising in this area...'_

For some reason you excluded the text in bold which is the precondition to the suggestion that follows. I wonder why you made that glaring omission.

As I trust you or anyone else reading this may readily see, if the full text is read I was suggesting that if you know little or nothing about the subject of tone poems you might find it of benefit to learn more about this before you attempt any lofty analysis on the subject of program content in music and how to analyze it.

This appears to be a subject of interest to you and I was therefore attempting to be helpful in pointing you in the direction of learning more about tone peoms, their history and evolution etc. Of course, you do not have to bother with any of this if you do not wish to do so. It's just that in my case I normally feel happier about commenting on those subjects that interest me if I have acquired some relevant background knowledge from accredited sources.


----------



## Guest

Partita said:


> That's easy. If you refer back to my post from which you selectively quoted, you will see that I made an important caveat prior to the section you quoted. The full relevant text is:
> 
> _'*However, it would appear that you are not familiar with either of the tone poems I selected, nor possibly with tone poems in general. If the latter is the case* you might find it of benefit to acquire more knowledge before embarking on any further theorising in this area...'_
> 
> For some reason you excluded the text in bold which is the precondition to the suggestion that follows. I wonder why you made that glaring omission.
> 
> As I trust you or anyone else reading this may readily see, if the full text is read I was suggesting that if you know little or nothing about the subject of tone poems you might find it of benefit to learn more about this before you attempt any lofty analysis on the subject of program content in music and how to analyze it.
> 
> This appears to be a subject of interest to you and I was therefore attempting to be helpful in pointing you in the direction of learning more about tone peoms, their history and evolution etc. Of course, you do not have to bother with any of this if you do not wish to do so. It's just that in my case I normally feel happier about commenting on those subjects that interest me if I have acquired some relevant background knowledge from accredited sources.


That's a "No", then .


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I now pronounce the debate between Partita and MacLeod officially over. 
And the winner is..............


----------



## Guest

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I now pronounce the debate between Partita and MacLeod officially over.
> And the winner is..............


Hey, wait a minute, who says it's over? I've plenty more petty, pernickety, irascible posts to come, just let me at him!!!


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Round two!


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## chalkpie

fart.
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## violadude

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Does anyone here like Humphrey Searle?


I would like him but I haven't heard him yet. I have heard seals though. They're funny.


----------



## Guest

The question is, have you heard humphrey seals. 

Not just any seals. Humphrey seals. Ar ar ar ar. (clap clap clap)


----------



## skipper

"The twentieth century got the unfortunate designations of modern and avant garde and contemporary, all of which are way more useful as moving targets than as stylistic descriptors...But since "the twentieth century" can mean both a chronological span (which, for some types is January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000 and for other types is January 1, 1900 and December 31, 1999) and a stylistic era, the temptation is there to ignore the relative messiness of the stylistic era...Stylistically, Mahler's symphonies are late romantic. All of them, on either side of the century mark." 

It is true that modernity marks the break down of coherent period styles--they were never that coherent, but around 1900 this had become a self-conscious problem--but the second of the claims I quote--taking the 20th century as "a stylistic era"--contradicts the insight of your first claim, i.e. that the 20th century has no clear style of its own. Finally, your pigeon-holing of Mahler neither allows for the range of his music--the primal scream chord in the adagio of the 10th, the ruthless, hypnotic intensity of the 6th, the strangeness of the 7th, the experimentation with forms making for an entirely choral symphony in the 8th and a song-cycle symphony in "das Lied von der Erde"--or musical history, with Mahler serving as a hero to the Second Viennese School, Schostakovich (the great Charles Rosen condemned him as "Mahler with the wrong notes"), etc. etc. The dividing line between Romanticism and Expressionism is not clear.


----------



## talx

Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1


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## Guest

skipper, everything you say applies much more precisely to the music of Berlioz than it does to the music of Mahler.

And no one would argue that Berlioz was a twentieth century composer. Or even a modern composer. (Except for when he was alive. He was modern then, but even then only for awhile. By mid-century a lot of people thought of him as old school.)

It's pretty easy, really. Mahler wrote late romantic music, which has all the characteristics you mention. Even Dvorak has them. Late romantic music is widely admired. The most recent type of music to be widely admired. Mahler lived past a century mark. In fact, he wrote many pieces after that mark. In fact, he even worked on his music under the influence of certain modern composers. Which is greatly to his credit, I think. But none of that changes any of his music from late romantic to modern. (Try Dvorak's _Wood Dove,_ for an example of a modern sounding late romantic piece written in the twentieth century. Or _Rusalka,_ with its screaming dissonances.)

What it does do, however, is give people who have not come to terms with the twentieth century, who have not come to terms with Schoenberg and/or Varese and/or Cage and/or Oliveros and/or Lachenmann and/or Ferrari and/or Ferreyra..., a great excuse to include music that is not _of_ that century (even though it may chronologically be _in_ that century). Favorite symphonies of the twentieth century? Well, obviously that cannot include Searles or Sessions or Dhomont (well, he calls his _Frankenstein_ piece a symphony) or Terterian or Ustvolskaya. And also obviously, it cannot include anyone who never wrote a symphony, which was a great number of people. And while one might be tempted to think that there are plenty of Bax's and Prokofiev's and Shostakovich's to keep everyone happy--why, there's even Sibelius and Barber and Stravinsky and Pettersson and Gorecki (not the modernist stuff, though. Symphony nr. 3 only, thank you very much)--that's apparently not so.

What we need, what we crave, what we insist on is a bona fide nineteenth century composer who was enormously talented, who is enormously beloved, who wrote symphonies past the century mark, and who even exhibits some of the characteristics of "modern" music. And who can be argued to be genuinely MODERN (even though he is principally valued for being romantic).

Mahler is perfect for that.

Easy.

{I think that philosophically, one of the worst things to happen to the twentieth century was that "modern" ceased to function as a moving target (which it had heretofore been) and was taken to be a fixed description of a style. Even worse, avant garde, which even more obviously refers to motion, had the same ossification happen to it. Contemporary, the same.}


----------



## Blancrocher

some guy said:


> Contemporary, the same.}


I think most people on the forum have seen it already, but for anyone unfamiliar with the music of many of the names in some guy's post Tom Service has a handy "guide to contemporary classical music."

http://www.theguardian.com/music/series/a-guide-to-contemporary-classical-music

I've been enjoying discovering gems from it since he started it.

*p.s.* Including Schnittke's 8th, the greatest symphony of the 20th century!


----------



## PetrB

Hey, my musical vocabulary is limited enough that I might be able to write a great 20th century symphony.

Oh, wait, too late, 2001 come and gone.


----------



## Mahlerian

Some guy, you contended earlier that Mahler's later music (written between 1901 and 1910) may have been in the 20th century, but not of it. I disagreed then and I disagree now. It shows every sign of being fully aware of contemporary trends, and could not have been written in the 19th century. Does it remain within the bounds of Romanticism, within the bounds of functional tonality? Yes, if barely at times. But I do not think that makes it any less of its time.

It seems you want to define 20th century and "modern" as specifically being those things which audiences are not yet comfortable with, and yet it is clear that many things which are inherent in the "modernist" aesthetic have permeated every level of the more popular concert music of this last century, from dissonances of all kinds (Shostakovich's Fourth has a 12-note chord), to irregularities in rhythm and phrasing, to heterogeneous orchestration and use of extended instrumental techniques.

At the time they were premiered, many of these pieces were all lumped together as "ultra-modern" (a derogatory term used much the same way 'atonal' is today in popular parlance), from Strauss to Sibelius's Fourth to Prokofiev's concertos as well as Schoenberg and Varese and Stravinsky. Henry Pleasants' _The Agony of Modern Music_ opines that *all* music of his day (1950s, when Neoclassicism was the order of the day) is equally culpable in alienating audiences.


----------



## Copperears

KenOC said:


> Just one please (and excluding that Gustav fellow -- I mean *real* 20th century).
> 
> My vote goes to Shostakovich's 10th, a big, brawny, serious, and highly original work of the highest quality. Any close runners-up are also Soviet.
> 
> Yours? You can argue with the rules as well, if you like!


Well here's where we almost agree; for me, it's Shostakovitch's 8th symphony, more brutal and programmatic than the 10th, or even the 7th for that matter, but with such a breadth of musical range and mood it is just breathtaking.


----------



## Guest

Mahlerian said:


> Some guy, you contended earlier that Mahler's later music (written between 1901 and 1910) may have been in the 20th century, but not of it. I disagreed then and I disagree now.


I'm OK with that. I know that we disagree about that.



Mahlerian said:


> It shows every sign of being fully aware of contemporary trends, and could not have been written in the 19th century.


Berlioz' music was all of written entirely in the 19th century, but it produces or anticipates things that would not become "trends" until well after the century mark.



Mahlerian said:


> It seems you want to define 20th century and "modern" as specifically being those things which audiences are not yet comfortable with


This is quite a stretch. What could I possibly have said that would have led to this conclusion? I don't think I've mentioned audiences at all, and I certainly would not use "audience response" to define what I mean by "modern." If I would define "modern" at all. Remember what I said about that being one of the worst things that happened to the twentieth century, that moving targets like "modern" ossified to being a particular style.

And I don't know about "audiences," but I've heard individuals complain about Janacek and Britten, who are neither of them particularly uncomfortable composers.



Mahlerian said:


> it is clear that many things which are inherent in the "modernist" aesthetic have permeated every level of the more popular concert music of this last century, from dissonances of all kinds (Shostakovich's Fourth has a 12-note chord), to irregularities in rhythm and phrasing, to heterogeneous orchestration and use of extended instrumental techniques.


Not sure why you've brought this up. It's a commonplace idea. I've probably mentioned it myself in various contexts. It's certainly not a contrary position to my own, to any of my own, except maybe that I would argue that there is no "modernist" aesthetic. Many of them. Not just one.

In any case, not to harp on this or anything, but dissonances and irregularities in rhythm and phrasing and heterogeneous orchestration and even perhaps a few extended techniques are all aspects of Berlioz music. I.e., are already firmly in place as 19th century innovations.

Sure, all the twentieth century offerings, including the most innocuously mild ones, were lumped together by people like Pleasants, but that's no argument for anything. Pleasants lumps a bunch of things together that do not go together because he hates everything. That doesn't mean that all those things he hates are equally modern. You don't think that, I know, so I'm puzzled that you even brought that up.

I don't have any argument, finally, with the idea that Mahler was obviously influenced by people like Schoenberg and Stravinsky. I can listen to his music, however, and hear that his contributions, however influenced, still sound like the nineteenth century, in a way that not even the very conservative Schoenberg does, in a way that not even the "very much influenced by Mahler" Krenek was, in a way that not even the arch-conservative and retrogressive Samuel Barber was.

It's ultimately, for me, a matter of feeling. A matter of having listened to a lot of music from several centuries and having a feel for what is typical or representative of any era. That's not really as impressionistic as it might sound. It's what any expert in any field has a sense of. It's what allows an expert to detect a fake. Prior to any scientific tests to corroborate the expert's conclusions.

I think, also, that you are as much of an expert as I am, but that we disagree about what is typical or representative of twentieth century music. Experts do disagree, from time to time.


----------



## Piwikiwi

sharik said:


> wait.. the talk is of *classical music* not about some voodoo ritual (jazz) , and classical music is a product of human thinking process directed by *human will* not merely some hips shakin' etc.
> 
> classical music has its roots in Christianity, which implies it to be dealing with search of the meaning of Life.
> music in itself can not and may not have power, unless a man ordains it to.


Jazz has it's roots in spirituals and the blues combined with classical harmony


----------



## Blake

Piwikiwi said:


> Jazz has it's roots in spirituals and the blues combined with classical harmony


Beethoven pioneered Jazz. Listen to his piano sonata 32, final movement.


----------



## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> Beethoven pioneered Jazz. Listen to his piano sonata 32, final movement.


Well, if you consider boogie-woogie to be jazz. I would have preferred something a *bit* more sophisticated, but Ludwig didn't ask me!


----------



## arpeggio

Vesuvius said:


> Beethoven pioneered Jazz. Listen to his piano sonata 32, final movement.


Blew me away the first time I heard it.


----------



## Blake

KenOC said:


> Well, if you consider boogie-woogie to be jazz. I would have preferred something a *bit* more sophisticated, but Ludwig didn't ask me!


Constant sophistication can turn a man to stone. The prodigy needs to have a little fun, eh?


----------



## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> Constant sophistication can turn a man to stone. The prodigy needs to have a little fun, eh?


I'm really imagining Beethoven leaning a bit more toward Cole Porter -- you know, "I get a kick from cocaine," like in Blazing Saddles. Or maybe a rag, like "Graceful Ghost." BTW what he *did* write is devilish difficult to play right. Pogorelich nails it.


----------



## Blake

KenOC said:


> I'm really imagining Beethoven leaning a bit more toward Cole Porter -- you know, "I get a kick from cocaine," like in Blazing Saddles. Or maybe a rag, like "Graceful Ghost." BTW what he *did* write is devilish difficult to play right. Pogorelich nails it.


Or more like Bill Murray, "Women, can't live with 'em... can't kill 'em."

Going to check out Pogorelich... Was listening to Pollini earlier.


----------



## billeames

Maybe Shostakovich 8. Maybe the 10th. Most likely Mahler 9th.


----------



## hpowders

William Schuman, Symphony #6.


----------



## mikey

VW 5, Elgar 2, Prok 6


----------



## omega

I'll go for _Mathis der Maler_.

My biggest escuses to Nielsen, Sibelius and Messiaen, whom I adore, too.


----------



## chalkpie

Garlic said:


> Why on earth shouldn't Mahler count? He wrote in the 20th century, his later symphonies are very much 20th century symphonies.
> 
> I vote Mahler 9. Honourable mentions: Prokofiev 2, Sibelius 4, Schnittke 3, Webern, Berio Sinfonia, Penderecki 1, Britten Cello Symphony, Nielsen 6, Ives 4


That's a killer list right there.


----------



## Orfeo

Carl Nielsen's 5th Symphony, hands down.
Other considerations:
Bax's 6th Symphony
Shostakovich's 7th
Myaskovsky's 6th
Ives' 2nd and 4th
Pettersson's 7th


----------



## Cosmos

Idk about "greatest", because there are so many great ones, and there is an even greater number that I haven't listened to yet. I'm sure there are a lot of greats I've never heard about before. So my vote really is more of a "which one is your favorite" answer.

With Prokofiev, it's either the 5th or the 6th (I prefer the 5th)
With Shostakovich, I have to agree with OP: No. 10 is the best
Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements is a favorite of mine, though idk if many would consider it a "best" of the century

So it doesn't look like I'm swooning over the Russkies, I'll bring up a few others:

Sibelius' 2nd. I'm not too familiar with him, so maybe it's a little odd to some for me to pick this one as the "best" of the century, but it is a great work.
Schuman's 3rd is the only one of his works that I'm familiar with. It's also a favorite
And I think Ives' are really good


----------



## SONNET CLV

Sibelius's Eighth (which slightly edges out Anton Webern's Symphony, Op 21)


----------



## PetrB

SONNET CLV said:


> Sibelius's Eighth (which slightly edges out Anton Webern's Symphony, Op 21)


Ah, the Sibelius 8th Symphony... the best sounding of all his works


----------



## SONNET CLV

PetrB said:


> Ah, the Sibelius 8th Symphony... the best sounding of all his works


Or look at it this way: Which symphony of all those listed so far on this thread would you most like to hear?


----------



## schuberkovich

Sibelius 7. Only just come round to truly appreciating it.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

PetrB said:


> Ah, the Sibelius 8th Symphony... the best sounding of all his works


If Aino was right, at least some of the themes ended up here.


----------



## PetrB

SONNET CLV said:


> Or look at it this way: Which symphony of all those listed so far on this thread would you most like to hear?


It has been a while since I posted, many pages back now, but pretty sure I named Luciano Berio ~ _Sinfonia._ I'm not a fan of the 'older style' symphonic format in the early and later 20th century, Nielsen's 5th and Mahler being the exceptions. For the rest, the 'big heroic, long development, handling the orchestra in blocks of its three instrumental sections I think got more than a little tired by the late 1800's... and there is a lot of post mid-romantic repertoire of all sorts which is so not my cuppa that I can barely listen to it, including the later 'extensions' of similar, ala Rachmannov, Rubbra, etc. Personal taste maybe = personal tic.

Really like and admire Stravinsky's _Symphony in C_, and of course _Symphony of Psalms_ is another monument of the general literature. I used to like W. Schuman's 6th, admittedly still think it fine but have at the same time left it behind, while I think it is at least an equal of anything Shostakovich wrote, admitting there that I just don't think of Shostakovich as being as formidable, important or 'timeless' as many seem to think... and I kinda have an aversion to 'favorite' postings / polls anyway since they divert attention away from so many other fine works which may or may not be listened to 100 years hence (Lukas Foss, Symphony "of chorales" No. 2, for example) I sometimes drop in to threads of this nature just to name a work which for one nanosecond alters the stream of answers calling upon all the more usual suspects.


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## bounty

It has to be Mahler 9. It all started with this work.
Honorable mentions Shostakovich 8, RVW 7, Roussel 2 and Dutilleux 1.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Schnittke 1!
Brian 1!
Shostakovich 2!
Schoenberg 1!
Sibelius 7!
Stravinsky 3 mvts!

I'm interested to know what the general consensus is on the "greatness" of Bernstein's symphonies. I am yet to hear one and rarely see any discussion on them...


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## Alypius

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I'm interested to know what the general consensus is on the "greatness" of Bernstein's symphonies. I am yet to hear one and rarely see any discussion on them...


Greatness, I don't know, but I enjoy his _Symphony #2 ("Age of Anxiety")_. It's really more of a piano concerto. It's got many subdivisions and plays on Auden's poem "Age of Anxiety." I'm not sure of its history, if it was originally intended as a different genre, why it has a large number of subsections. But as a work for listening, quite enjoyable:


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## hpowders

Thinking long and hard about this. Eliminating everything by Mahler, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Ives, alone, I've decided on:

Ives-Brant, A Concord Symphony as the greatest 20th century symphony.

This is a marvelous, colorful orchestration of the second greatest piano sonata ever written. 

Convincing and wonderful.

The performance to get is with Michael Tilson Thomas directing the San Francisco Symphony.

Do not storm my door. I only have one copy.


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## senza sordino

Mahler 9

or maybe

Sibelius 5, or 7

or maybe 

Shostakovich 5 or 10

or maybe

Prokofiev 5


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## QuietGuy

Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms


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## revdrdave

GreenMamba said:


> For me, Ives 4th, Vaughan Williams 5th, Stravinsky of Psalms.


Vaughan Williams 5th: yes. If I could have only one symphony of not just the 20th century but any period to listen to, it would be this one. The last three minutes, for me, may be the most glorious three minutes in music.


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