Top Ten Symphonies

[Nachtigall]

Impossible, but…

Tchaikovsky 6 (with an option on Manfred)
Bruckner 8 (with options on 7 & 9)
Mahler 9 (with options on 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 10)
Dvorák 9
Elgar 1
Vaughan Williams 3 (with options on 1, 2, 5 & 7)
Rachmaninov 2 (with an option on 3)
Sibelius 6 (agree with Ferretfancy on this)
Shostakovich 8 (with options on 5, 10 & 11)
Walton 1

No room, alas, for Silvestrov's Fifth Symphony.

[umslopogaas]

Caliban post 84 and antongould posts 82 and 89

Caliban, just had another distant memory of mono deletion sales. I used to travel to and from my undergraduate years via Waterloo Station in the late 1960s. There was a dealer in second-hand records who would put a cardboard box of mono deletions outside his shop (stall, more like it, I think, or maybe it was WH Smith, the details have faded) in the faint hope that some impoverished music lover would succumb. I often did. Since, if I recall correctly, my sound system consisted of an old 1930s valve radio that had belonged to my recently deceased Gran, which I used as a speaker (the speaker system was actually rather good ... for a 1930s radio, the sound was certainly of a rich, VINTAGE quality), coupled to a second-hand deck and amp of which at the moment I have forgotten the details: Rogers? Thorens? I will remember - the fact that there was only one channel wasnt a problem. I cant read a note of music and cant play anything except a record deck, in fact I think I might be tone deaf, so it is surprising that all my life I have had a deep love of classical music and recordings. I cant explain it, I just love the sound.

And antongould posts 82 and 89

A list of 100 favourites? Yipes, that sounds a challenge, but on a bit more thought, not really. Mozart and Haydn would get you there unaided, though it would be a bit of an ordeal to deal with their teenage numbers. And there are a few others. I read somewhere that one of the big symphonists complained that it just went on getting more difficult and complicated, every time one of the big guys wrote something, you had to write something even bigger. 'Pah, Bruckner's eighth, what's that old rubbish? Strauss, little stroll in the hills? Gustav will see them off, wait till you hear THIS' Cue for Symphony of a Thousand. No wonder Stravinsky got kind of austere.

But, antongould, 'a core 4/5 that never change' I think that is likely to be true. It would be interesting (OH, stop saying that!) to see what sifted out of the responses. I'll go away and have a think about that core. Dangerous stuff, given what news is coming out of Japan at the moment, maybe 'cores' arent where you'd really like to be just now. Unless you were a pip. Pip-pip.

[Tevot]

Very much agree with Nachtigall - post 91 above.

But off the top of my head:

Sibelius 5
Nielsen 5
Beethoven 6
Prokofiev 6
Shostakovich 13
Ives 4
Mahler 10
Bruckner 8
Vaughan Williams 5
Elgar 3

[tom_960]

Top 10, different composers, probably in order of preference:

Brahms 4
Bruckner 8
Schubert 8
Beethoven 3
Mahler 4
Mozart 39
Vaughan Williams 1
Sibelius 7
Prokofiev 5
Elgar 1

[remdataram]

Mahler 2,3,4,6,9
Beethoven 3,7
Sibelius 2
Schubert 9
Tchaikovsky 5

[Stanfordian]

Top Ten lists:

This is my list of the my top ten if I had to grab my favourite music from the house. But its not in any order:

Mahler 6 & 9;
Shostakovich 5;
Bruckner 5;
Beethoven 7;
Mozart 40;
Vaughan Williams 4, 5 & 6;
Elgar 1;
Schubert 8;

String Concertos:
Walton violin concerto;
Britten violin concerto;
Shostakovich violin concertos 1 & 2;
Shostakovich cello concertos 1 & 2;
Beethoven violin concerto;
Brahms violin concerto;
Prokofiev violin concertos 1 & 2

Piano Concertos:
Prokofiev piano concerto 3;
Beethoven piano concerto 1-5;
Grieg piano concerto;
Schumann piano concerto;
Chopin piano concerto 1 & 2;

[Tapiola]

Think I'll award myself another 10:

Beethoven 8
Shostakovich 14
Myaskovsky 21
Berlioz - Sinfonie funebre et triomphale
Stravinsky - Symphony in C
Tchaikovsky 6
Schnittke 8
Brahms 4
Silvestrov 5
Norgard 2

[Panjandrum]

Top 10 Omissions

Having resisted the temptation until now to contribute to this thread I am, however, gobsmacked at the following omissions:

Berio Sinfonia
Britten "Cello"
Haydn Symphony 98, 101
Honegger 3 "Liturgique"
Ives "New England Holidays"
Liszt Eine Faust-Symphonie
Lutoslawski Symphony No 3
Mozart Sinfonia-Concertante
Prokofiev Symphony-Concerto
Schumann 3 "Rheinische"

[LeMartinPecheur]

Having resisted the temptation until now to contribute to this thread I am, however, gobsmacked at the following omissions:

Berio Sinfonia
Britten "Cello"
Haydn Symphony 98, 101
Honegger 3 "Liturgique"
Ives "New England Holidays"
Liszt Eine Faust-Symphonie
Lutoslawski Symphony No 3
Mozart Sinfonia-Concertante
Prokofiev Symphony-Concerto
Schumann 3 "Rheinische"

panjandrum: could it be that three of your absentees are neither symphonies nor concertos (Britten, Mozart, Prokofiev) and that the Berio is merely a sinfonia and therefore by definition not a symphony?

[Suffolkcoastal]

The Honegger was in my top 100 list, Though admittedly not in my top 10 it is still among my favourite symphonies.

[Panjandrum]

panjandrum: could it be that three of your absentees are neither symphonies nor concertos (Britten, Mozart, Prokofiev) and that the Berio is merely a sinfonia and therefore by definition not a symphony?

Sinfonia [It.]. Symphony (Grove; Oxford Dictionary of Music). Not sure, therefore, what you mean by "merely a sinfonia" since this is the Italian translation of symphony. Anyone who knows this work knows it is not a "merely" piece!

As for the Britten, Mozart and Prokofiev, well if the Turangalila and Mahler 8 can make the list I think these three compositions certainly meet the criteria of symphony (hybrid or otherwise) whatever they are. Actually, your comment LMP (good natured ribbing though I'm sure it was) reminds me of Ives saying he was "tired of hearing the lily boys [i.e. conservative music critics] say, 'This is a symphony?—Mercy!—Where is the first theme of 12 measures in C major?'

Vive la différence!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sinfonia [It.]. Symphony (Grove; Oxford Dictionary of Music). Not sure, therefore, what you mean by "merely a sinfonia" since this is the Italian translation of symphony.

Yes...but...
In Italy, a symphony has always been a small-scale thing. Can anyone think of an Italian symphony (apart from the one by that 19th century German)?

[Panjandrum]

Yes...but...
In Italy, a symphony has always been a small-scale thing. Can anyone think of an Italian symphony (apart from the one by that 19th century German)?

Well, there's Respighi's "Sinfonia Drammatica" of 1914. Once again, I would argue that sinfonia is a literal translation of symphony as it would be ridiculous to compose a "Dramatic Little symphony". Not one of his chef d'oeuvres but a symphony, nonetheless. However, generally speaking I would agree that the Italians have stayed away from the more "germanic" tradition of symphony and sonata form compositions.

However, I don't think this thread ever defined what characteristics a symphony must have to be so-called: the requirement was to list ten favourite "symphonies". Therefore, if the composer described their piece as a symphony, or its linguistic equivalent, then that surely meets the loose criteria to which we were working. I think some of us are still trapped in a rather austro-germanic way of looking at this.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Italian composers were certainly important in the early story of the symphony notably G B Sammartini. Admittedly since then Italy hasn't made much of an impact on the history of the symphony with only Respighi's Sinfonia Drammatica, the two symphonies of Martucci (of which I'm quite fond) and Malipiero with his 11 numbered and 4 unnumbered symphonies which are highly attractive at times though often fairly small scale, among the more notable contributions.

[scottycelt]

Bruckner 1-9
Turangalila

(Not necessarily in that order) ..

But then again I may plump for any of the Shostakovich symphonies, Beethoven 5, Schubert 9, and, God help me, Mahler 9 and 10. Gliere 3 is another great favourite of mine... and then there is Tchaikovksy and Sibelius and ... oh never mind!