# Secret Symphonists (Famous Composers Most Don't Know Wrote Symphonies)



## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

Some of you may know these, but I'll bet many aren't even aware of them. A lot of these aren't exactly masterpieces so that's probably why. A few of them are very good, though.

Bizet (Symphony in C major; Roma Symphony)
*OK the one in C is well-known, but TWO symphonies?
Bloch (5 Symphonies)
Boccherini (33 Symphonies)
Britten (Sinfonia da requiem; Simple Symphony; Choral Symphony; Cello Symphony)*
*The Simple Symphony is well known but most still don't think of him as a writer of symphonies.
Bruch (3 Symphonies)
Carter (Symphony No. 1)
Chausson (Symphony in B-flat)
Cherubini (Symphony in D major)
Dukas (Symphony in C)
Enescu (5 Symphonies)
Ginastera (Symphony No. 1 "Porteña"; Symphony No. 2 "Elegíaca")*
*withdrawn by composer, but maybe they'll show up someday
Gluck (9 Symphonies)
Gounod (Symphony No. 1 in D major; Symphony No. 2 in E-flat major)
Grieg (Symphony in C minor)
Holst (Symphony in F Major, Op. 8 "Cotswolds"; Choral Symphony)
Khachaturian (3 Symphonies)
Kodály (Symphony in C major)
Korngold (Symphony in F-sharp minor)
Lalo (Symphony in G minor)
Milhaud (12 Symphonies)
Respighi (Sinfonia drammatica)
Smetana (Festive Symphony)
Strauss, Richard (Symphony No. 1 in D minor; Symphony No. 2 in F minor)
Sullivan (Symphony in E "The Irish")
Villa-Lobos (12 Symphonies)
Wagner (Symphony in C major, WWV 29)
Weber (Symphony No. 1 in C major; Symphony No. 2 in C major)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


>


 The funeral symphony is a new one on me... where the heck did that come from? :lol: The one E-flat is just a two movement torso, correct? This I've heard of but forgot.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Kurt Weill (2)
Igor Stravinsky - can't forget that early E flat symphony
Bernard Herrmann


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Louis Spohr (1784-59) composed ten symphonies but he was - and probably still is - better known for some of his many concertos and chamber works.


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

mbhaub said:


> Kurt Weill (2)
> Igor Stravinsky - can't forget that early E flat symphony
> Bernard Herrmann


Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements and Symphony of Psalms are quite well known, surely? The Symphony in C isn't as known as those two but still gets a fair number of recordings. Still, for whatever reason, we don't think of them as a group or Stravinsky as a "symphonist", so perhaps you are still correct in a sense.


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> Louis Spohr (1784-59) composed ten symphonies but he was - and probably still is - better known for some of his many concertos and chamber works.


Sadly, he's more likely not to be known at all. I've known of him for years mostly through his Nonet, then much later the Clarinet Concertos, but only recently have I heard any of his symphonies. I like the Symphonies No. 7 and No. 9 in particular.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra (it's a symphony).


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra (*it's a symphony*).


What makes it so?


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Chopin's Symphony in F flat Major.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

christomacin said:


> Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements and Symphony of Psalms are quite well known, surely? The Symphony in C isn't as known as those two but still gets a fair number of recordings. Still, for whatever reason, we don't think of them as a group or Stravinsky as a "symphonist", so perhaps you are still correct in a sense.


He also wrote the Symphonie of Winds. The only reason I put Stravinsky there is that while the other "symphonies" are very well known, very few people, even Stravinsky fans, have heard of or even heard that early Tchaikovskian Symphony in E flat. It's also the only one he wrote that is even close to be what traditionally constitutes a symphony.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Becca said:


> What makes it so?


Other than the title, there's not a single thing about it that suggests anything else. Imagine a premiere of the work heard by 100 experienced classical listeners unaware of the title. How many would say it's a symphony? All of them.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Bartók said that he called the piece a concerto rather than a symphony because of the way each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuosic way. The work seems to hearken back to the baroque concerto grosso, in which the soloists (the concertino) continually emerge from and blend back into the full orchestra (the ripieno). With Bartok, this arrangement is expanded to make the whole orchestra generate a constantly changing concertino, generally drawn from distinct orchestral sections. So we find concertino groupings in all the movements: woodwind in all five movements, strings in all except the second, strings plus horns and tympani form an alliance in the odd-numbered movements (though less obviously so in the third), and the brass in the central fugue of the first movement, the chorale of the second, and the coda of the finale.


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

mbhaub said:


> He also wrote the Symphonie of Winds. The only reason I put Stravinsky there is that while the other "symphonies" are very well known, very few people, even Stravinsky fans, have heard of or even heard that early Tchaikovskian Symphony in E flat. It's also the only one he wrote that is even close to be what traditionally constitutes a symphony.


Er... well, the title is Symphon*ies* of Wind Instruments. I'm not sure Stravinsky intended it to be seen as a *symphony*, in the same way the other four were. The fact that the title is plural suggests (so the pundits claim) something else. One of my favorites by Stravinsky, regardless. I do indeed have a recording of the early E-flat Symphony, played by Ashkenazy and the St. Petersburg PO.

For those who don't know the early symphony can tuck into this:


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

vtpoet said:


> Chopin's Symphony in F flat Major.


Huh? What say?  I need a link for this puppy. Has it been recorded?

Oh, there's also this "Symphony in B minor" by Debussy (not orchestrated by him, though):


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Bartók said that he called the piece a concerto rather than a symphony because of the way each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuosic way. The work seems to hearken back to the baroque concerto grosso, in which the soloists (the concertino) continually emerge from and blend back into the full orchestra (the ripieno). With Bartok, this arrangement is expanded to make the whole orchestra generate a constantly changing concertino, generally drawn from distinct orchestral sections. So we find concertino groupings in all the movements: woodwind in all five movements, strings in all except the second, strings plus horns and tympani form an alliance in the odd-numbered movements (though less obviously so in the third), and the brass in the central fugue of the first movement, the chorale of the second, and the coda of the finale.


So a concerto that isn't like any earlier species of concerto, doesn't establish any systematic formal deployment of soloists versus ripieno, and in which with the roles are constantly shifting? That's just the sort of thing people usually call a symphony, isn't it? 

I think calling it Concerto for Orchestra was a good idea, but mostly because orphan, singleton symphonies are a little sad and conspicuous. When one says, for example, "the Franck Symphony," the universal first thought is: "He only wrote one. Huh." Berlioz had a good strategy for this: adding a striking adjective to divert attention. That works too.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Hindemith: _Symphony in Bb for Band, Symphony in Eb, Sinfonietta in E, Symphonia Serena and Pittsburgh Symphony_ (I am excluding _Mathis der Mahler and Harmonie der Welt_ which are really more like a suites).


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Rheinberger, a composer mostly known for his organ and choral music, also wrote a handful of orchestral works, among which 2 symphonies.

The first is based (like so many romantic works) on Schiller's "Wallenstein". And attractive piece in the tradition of Schumann and Liszt's tone poems, expressive but a bit faceless, overly long and with some dead spots. It got about 3 recordings of variable quality.






The much better 2nd "Florentine" symphony is less lucky in the recordings department. Only a single so-so recording is available. This near-masterpiece deserves much better!


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

If you mention the name Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, most classical listeners will know him for the orchestral brilliance of his famous Scheherazade & Capriccio Espagnol, and for being the teacher of Igor Stravinsky; yet my impression has been that people tend to forget or don't know that Rimsky-Korsakov composed three excellent symphonies:

--Symphony No. 1, Op. 1 (second version--revised 1883): 



--Symphony No. 2 "Antar", Op. 9--which the composer later re-designated a "Symphonic Suite": 



--Symphony No. 3, Op. 32: 




The same could be said for the three symphonies of Reinhold Glière, as well (at least, until relatively recently), when compared to his better known Concerto for Harp and Orchestra, for instance, or his popular ballet, "The Red Poppy",

--Symphony No. 1, Op. 8 (1900):








--Symphony No. 2, Op. 25 (1907): 



--Symphony No. 3 "Ilya Muromets", Op. 42 (1908-11)--dedicated to Alexander Glazunov: 




In addition, my impression has been that people focus almost exclusively on Franz Liszt's solo piano music, & tend to forget that Liszt composed two symphonies--his Dante & Faust Symphonies; as well as a series of Symphonic tone poems (which strongly influenced Wagner), some of which are rather obscure today.

--Dante Symphony--dedicated to Richard Wagner: 



--Faust Symphony: 









But, in my view, the most egregious slight to an important composer in today's catalogue has been the 4 Symphonies of Charles Koechlin. Granted, Koechlin's "The Seven Stars Symphony" has been recorded twice--by conductors James Judd & David Zinman, but the other three have not yet received official recordings! & if you wish to hear Koechlin's 1st & 2nd Symphonies, the only way to do so is to search out two very old French & British radio broadcasts on You Tube, from conductors Manuel Rosenthal & Constantin Silvestri, respectively:

--Symphony No. 1 (1926)--which is an orchestration of Koechlin's earlier String Quartet No. 2: 



--Symphony No. 2 (1944): 




--The Seven Stars' Symphony (1933): 




--"Symphonie d'Hymnes": Unfortunately, only specific movements from this symphony have been recorded to date, as standalone tone poems. Here is a 1960 recording of the 1936 "Hymne à la Nuit" movement from this neglected symphony,






& here too is the 1933 "Hymne au soleil" movement, again recorded as a separate tone poem: 



.

In other words, I expect most people are more likely going to know Koechlin's orchestrations of his teacher Gabriel Faure's "Pelleas et Melisande", and Claude Debussy's late ballet, "Khamma", than they are Koechlin's own orchestral works--such as his "Les Heures Persanes": 



, "Au Loin": 



, "The Jungle Book", etc., let alone his four obscure & largely unrecorded symphonies (apart from The Seven Stars' Symphony).

By the way, if you're wondering how to pronounce Koechlin's name, you're not alone, it gets mispronounced all the time--especially by BBC announcers, who are responsible for spreading an incorrect pronunciation of his last name over the decades (you can hear it on the 1950s Silvestri BBC broadcast), as they pronounce the "n", which is actually silent. Here is the correct pronunciation, explained by one of the composer's family descendants, the Bollywood actress, Kalki Koechlin: 



.

Lastly, the popularity of Finnish composer, Joonas Kokkonen's opera, "The Last Temptations" has tended to overshadow that he composed four important & IMO, very underrated 20th century symphonies, which deserve to be heard!,

Here are the various recordings that have been made to date, which, not surprisingly, all come from Finnish conductors,

--Symphonies nos. 1 & 2 (Oramo): 




--Symphonies nos. 1 & 4 (Berglund): 




--Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 (Oramo): 




--Symphony No. 3 (Berglund): 




--Symphonies Nos. 1-4 (Vanska, Söderblom): 




--Symphony No. 4 (Kamu--to date, only released on LP): 




My 2 cents.


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