Category Archives: Music

A history of the symphony

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As a musical form, the symphony has given us some of music’s greatest moments. From Mozart through Beethoven and Brahms to Wagner and beyond, one of the contradiction of the symphony is that for all its length enabled composers to express themselves its the musical eequivalent of soundbites that we remember.

But how did the symphony develop? Sitting in the Royal Albert Hall last night, listening to Prokofiev’s 3rd symphony at the BBC Proms was a good a place as any to ask. In a venue built for large works, which is synonymous with the big orchesteral works, composers and conductors, a Proms programme without a series of big symphonies would be empty. But how was it that composers went from writing church music, salon/dance music and the odd opera to a full-blown symphony? How did they get the audience to sit down for that long? How did the economics of music-making enable the art form to flourish?

Musically, symphonies are also fascinating. Watching a Mozart symphony is very different from, say Mahler 8. So how did the art form change as new instruments became available, choirs were added, off-stage bands given an occasional role? Which were the outliers or anomalies and which were the innovations that changed the form? After hearing the 5th movement in Beethoven 6, did other composers sense they were missing a movement? Did others scramble to write choral parts after Beethoven’s 9th? If not (and I suspect not) why not?

There are also questions around symphonies and composers. Why was it that Bach wrote none, Mozart 41, Hayden 104 then Beethoven and most others settled on 9 or fewer, before Shostakovich came along with 15? And why has the symphony all but died as a form for new art (apart from completions such as the Payne/Elgar 3rd symphony?

I’ve gone to Amazon and thus far not found anything which looks as though it might provide the answers. It seems like a great subject for a Bill Bryson-style effort. Do you have any recommendations?

Further reading I found online today was:

1. BRIEF JOURNEY THROUGH THE HISTORY OF THE  SYMPHONY

2. A brief history of the symphony as musical form

. . . so clearly all the best titles have already been grabbed.

Elgar Symphony Number One

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I like Elgar’s Symphony Number One in A flat major for its tunes and the prominent cello part so I’ve selected it as the first of my introductions to classical music.


A brief introduction to Elgar


Elgar is always considered to be a very English composer – Land of Hope and Glory, the Malvern Hills and all that. However, as any CD inlay card should tell you, his musical legacy was as much German as English and this symphony owes its inheritance as much to Brahms as anyone else.


The context


His first symphony was written during 1907 and 1908. Rudyard Kipling was winning a nobel prize for literature, Baden Powell was forming the scouts and Campbell-Bannerman was prime minister, in the years leading up to Lloyd George’s people’s budget. Free school meals were introduced in 1907 and the next year pensions were introduced for people over 70. It was a time that Britain was becoming conscious of its standing in the world (recently fighting wars in South Africa) just as its pre-eminence was slipping (German raw materials production were starting to rival Britain’s).


An introduction to the symphony


This symphony is structured in the basic symphony form. There are four movements. The main theme that begins the first movement is repeated at the end of the final movement. The second movement is a scherzo – quicker than average – and the third movement is slow. However, the piece is in A flat major – the first note you hear in the piece is an A flat – and is the only major symphony to be in that key.


The first movement starts with a tune in the cello section – probably one of the main reasons that I’m fond of it.

The tune has all of the grand-ness and imperial feeling that you’d expect of a tune by Elgar and it’s a reasonably unusual way to start a symphony. The movement lasts 18 minutes and introduces a second theme which is woven with the first at the conclusion to the movement.


The second movement is frankly a bit scrappy but at around seven minutes long, it’s not too much to endure. It also begins with the main theme. It is in f sharp minor which is about as far from A flat as you can get so it can be a surprise on the ear. It’s also a difficult key to play in. The theme gets passed across the string section at the start of the movement and I always enjoyed watching other sections struggle (particularly the violas) before inevitably making a hash of it myself. I’ve never thought that Elgar has been particularly good at the bits in music where he plays around with the theme to develop it and takes it into different keys. This movement is a particularly good illustration of his weaknesses.


The third movement makes up for it and remind you that Elgar can write a good tune. If you like Nimrod, you’ll like this. The movement begins in the same way as Nimrod, with a note hung-over by the violins from the end of the previous movement – a useful reminder not to clap (which was actually traditional during Elgar’s time). Amazingly, it’s almost exactly the same notes that make up the scrappy theme in the second movement – just played a bit slower.


The final movement unwinds slowly (or if you don’t like it, takes a while to get going). However, after a meandering theme on the clarinet it resolves into a brisk march. The movement as a whole is about 10 minutes long and the last couple of minutes are taken up with bringing together all of the main themes. This extract shows the return of the tune that the piece began with.


The symphony’s reception


The piece debuted at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, which has a pretty fine tradition of seminal music concerts. It was loved by audiences and performed 100 times in the first year. As ever with Elgar, it wasn’t particularly well-received by critics or his peers. Shostakovich described it as one of the finest symphonies of the twentieth century but the extent to which that’s a compliment (for a piece finished in 1908) depends on when he said it. Elgar always struggled to get critical acclaim because mostly he was writing in a style that wasn’t pushing the boundaries of artistic exploration (more Coldplay than the Beatles).


I discovered this piece whilst playing in the Hampshire County Youth Orchestra and we took it on a four week tour of South Africa in 1998 – si it reminds me of happy times playing in provincial town halls, schools and concert venues around the south and west coasts of SA.


What happened next


Elgar went on to write a second symphony shortly afterwards and an unfinished third symphony, neither of which are as popular. Although most of his famous tunes were already written, Falstaff and the Crown of India suite are both good pieces of music which are worth a listen.


More information


If you’d like more information about the piece, this BBC Radio 3 summary is a good place to start.

Nadia Boulanger – an introduction

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Meet Nadia Boulanger: the woman that unites, Thriller, Love you Live, The Look of Love, Tom Jones, one of the best pianists of his generation, all of the world’s greatest orchestras – and more.

But first, imagine this: a woman in the last 1800s, who did not have the vote, was not expected to work, was not expected to have any formal education, entering a profession which was almost exclusively male. Women had previously featured in the profession, but only as muses and competitive love interests. Now imagine that woman was more a influential than a modern-day Cathy Dennis, who inspired more artists than the Beatles, who created a bigger school of music than Motown Records. Now you’re getting close to understanding the significance of Nadia Boulanger.

If you know any modern day classical music composers, the chances are they were taught by Nadia Boulanger. And if they weren’t (she died in 1979) they will have been taught by someone who learnt from Boulanger. For example:

I don’t know what hardship, prejudice or difficulties she may have had to overcome, if indeed any at all. Clearly (if wikipedia is to be believed, she had a beneficial start to her career).

I’d like to know more about this apparently extraordinary woman and if I ever get round to writing a good historical study, this would be a good place to start. However, as it was she just came into my mind after @hubmum asked on Twitter who her child could write about during half term.