# Weirdest Symphonies Before 20th Century



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

My vote goes to Louis Spohr's No.6 Op.116 _"Historical Symphony in the Style and Taste of Four Different Periods"_ (1839). Just thinking about it makes me LOL.

I. The Age of Bach and Handel: Largo-Grave [0:00]
II. The Age of Haydn and Mozart: Larghetto [7:30]
III. The Age of Beethoven: Scherzo [16:51]
IV. The Newest of the New: Allegro vivace [23:20]





Try not to nominate works written after 1899 because that's kind of like "cheating" (because as you know, in the modern era, "being normal" is weird).


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

The subtitle of Raff's 6th symphony always brings a smile:

"Gelebt, gestrebt, gelitten, gestritten, gestorben, umworben"

In English is loses something: Lived, strived for, suffered, fought, died, courted.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Anthony Heinrich... Symphony titled...The Ornithological Combat of Kings, or the Condor of the Andes, 1845.






Or Manitou Mysteries, or the Voice of the Great Spirit: Gran sinfonia misteriosa-indiana, also 1845


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

William Fry, Santa Claus Symphony. 1853






Or the Niagra Symphony. 1854


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Leopold Mozart - Toy Symphony


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Even though it has mainstream acceptance these days, it's hard to outdo the weirdness of Berlioz and his _Symphonie fantastique_.

But speaking of Spohr, his Symphony No. 7, Op. 121, "Irdisches und Göttliches im Menschenleben" ("The earthly and divine in human life") is a good candidate. I actually got to perform this with a professional orchestra once. The orchestra is divided in two, with the stipulation to be separated in vertical space, one divine, the other, earthly. All the woodwind 1 parts are in the former. It's a crazy piece, almost Ivesian at times when the two worlds collide. Admittedly, the piece aims higher than it can reach, but I enjoyed it.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Haydn Symphony 60 "Il Distratto"


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## Machiavel (Apr 12, 2010)

Alexander Tansman was commission a symphony with piano quartet obligato.

Must be the only symhpony with a chamber quartet playing on top and with ...


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I can't top the weirdness of that Spohr piece, which I'd never heard of. I'm also not a connoisseur of obscure symphonies, but drawing from the mainstream, I'd say Brahms' 3rd and Mahler's 4th (which is right on the edge of the time period) are both fairly weird.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

isorhythm said:


> I can't top the weirdness of that Spohr piece, which I'd never heard of. I'm also not a connoisseur of obscure symphonies, but drawing from the mainstream, I'd say Brahms' 3rd and Mahler's 4th (which is right on the edge of the time period) are both fairly weird.


Why Brahms 3rd?


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

MusicSybarite said:


> Why Brahms 3rd?


That's what I was wondering, too.

And, if you're going to pick a pre-1900 Mahler symphony, isn't No. 3 the least conventional?


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Knorf said:


> Even though it has mainstream acceptance these days, it's hard to outdo the weirdness of Berlioz and his _Symphonie fantastique_.
> 
> But speaking of Spohr, his Symphony No. 7, Op. 121, "Irdisches und Göttliches im Menschenleben" ("The earthly and divine in human life") is a good candidate. I actually got to perform this with a professional orchestra once. The orchestra is divided in two, with the stipulation to be separated in vertical space, one divine, the other, earthly. All the woodwind 1 parts are in the former. It's a crazy piece, almost Ivesian at times when the two worlds collide. Admittedly, the piece aims higher than it can reach, but I enjoyed it.


I recorded a broadcast on cassette of the Boston Symphony performing that Spohr symphony back in 1985. Here is the archive listing.

08-03-1985 /
1984-1985 Season 
Ludwig Spohr / Symphony No. 7 in C major for Double Orchestra, Op. 121, "Irdisches und Gottliches . . ."
Raymond Leppard	Boston Symphony Orchestra	Tanglewood - Shed
Lenox, MA, U.S.A.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Dittersdorf's Ovid symphonies are at least a stretch in the weird direction... and for me St Saens is pretty weird much of the time... that organ symphony for example


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

JAS said:


> Leopold Mozart - Toy Symphony


"Recent research on a newly found manuscript suggests the Austrian Benedictine monk *Edmund Angerer* (1740-1794) to be the author. If Angerer's manuscript (from 1765, entitled "Berchtolds-Gaden Musick") is the original, the Toy Symphony was originally written not in G but rather in C. These findings, however, are disputed among scholars. There is reason to believe that the true composer will likely never be known, in whole or in part, given its confused origins and the paucity of related manuscript sources." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Symphony

btw, Leopold has some stuff I genuinely enjoy, such as this missa:


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I had a toy keyboard/sampler as a kid, and it would play the Toy Symphony as a demo. Of course as a boy I had great fun by annoying people by sampling bupring or fart noises, and having the keyboard play the Toy Symphony with burps and farts. Little did I know I wasn't too far from the real spirit of the piece. Anyway, I never new it was a "real" piece of music until decades later when I stumbled across a performance of the Toy Symphony on Youtube. Blew my mind.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Knorf said:


> That's what I was wondering, too.
> 
> And, if you're going to pick a pre-1900 Mahler symphony, isn't No. 3 the least conventional?


Quite so, indeed: length, number of movements, children choir...

That would be a good candidate.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Recent research on a newly found manuscript suggests the Austrian Benedictine monk *Edmund Angerer* (1740-1794) to be the author. If Angerer's manuscript (from 1765, entitled "Berchtolds-Gaden Musick") is the original, the Toy Symphony was originally written not in G but rather in C. These findings, however, are disputed among scholars. There is reason to believe that the true composer will likely never be known, in whole or in part, given its confused origins and the paucity of related manuscript sources." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Symphony
> 
> btw, Leopold has some stuff I genuinely enjoy, such as this missa:


An old 12-inch 78 RPM record of the Toy Symphony (whoever composed it) was my introduction to Classical Music in the mid-1950s.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I wasn’t aware of those Spohr symphonies. Almost like playful postmodern experimentation in the Classical era! Remarkable. Liszt’s Faust and Dante Symphonies also come to mind - they stretch the accepted definitions of the genre pretty far for their day. Then of course we have Haydn’s “Farewell” with the musicians leaving the stage in the middle of the finale...


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Alfacharger said:


> Anthony Heinrich... Symphony titled...The Ornithological Combat of Kings, or the Condor of the Andes, 1845.


Cool to see this performed by my home orchestra and conducted by the late Christopher Keene.


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

I've got a recording of the _Historical_ symphony by Spohr. The idea was quite clever and the composer must have had a bit of fun with it but to me the work itself is nothing more than a mildly entertaining pastiche that's worth listening to just once in a while - Spohr was a solid composer but perhaps he lacked that crucial final sprinkle of stardust to make music which could do justice to such a premise.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Mozart's symphony no. 38 is kind of weird and it's awesome.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Berlioz's "symphonies" such as the Fantastique, Harold, Romeo et Juliette, etc. They defy categorization and he was doing this only a few years after Beethoven added a choir to a symphony and everybody freaked out.


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