Is the Symphony as an Art Form Dead?

[EdgeleyRob]

Malcolm Arnold 9 a major influence but EdgeleyRob very much his own man.

I can see the reviews now.

(strangely enough,it does have some MAish moments)

[richardfinegold]

Blimey, are Segerstam's symphonies as short as Scarlatti sonatas? How on earth does he find the time?

He uses toilet paper made out of sheet music

[Roehre]

Still some composers interested in the symphony, below are the ones I reviewed up to 2012 that I reviewed during my symphonic journey. Ib Norholm & Per Norgard are among the more significant, John Harbison has composed a 4th & 5th, Aho completed his 16th last year. I expect David Matthews will probably add a couple more.

2000
Corigliano: Symphony No 2
Maxwell Davies: Symphony No 7
Henze: Symphony No 10
Holloway: Symphony
Sumera: Symphony No 6
Yosimatsu: Symphony No 4
2001
Maxwell Davies: Symphony No 8 ‘Antarctic Symphony’
P Glass: Symphony No 6 ‘Plutonium Ode’
Hersch: Symphony No 2
H Kox: Symphony No 4 ‘Tasmanian Symphony’
Sallinen: Symphony No 8 ‘Autumnal Fragments’
Yosimatsu: Symphony No 5
2002
G Coates : Symphony No 14 ‘Symphony in Microtones’
D Ellis: Symphony No 2
Segerstam: Symphony No 81 ‘after eighty’
2003
Aho: Symphony No 12 ‘Luosto’
Aho: Symphony No 13’ Symphonic Characterisations’
J Anderson: Symphony
A Butterworth: Symphony No 5
Harbison: Symphony No 4
J Krenz: Symphony No 3
MacMillan: Symphony No 3 ’Silence’
Silvestrov: Symphony No 7
Veale: Symphony No 3
2004
Casken: Symphony ‘Broken Consort’
Corigliano: Symphony No 3 ‘Circus Maximus’
P Glass: Symphony No 7 ‘Toltec’
2005
Arnell: Symphony No 7 ‘Mandela’ (realised Yates 2010)
G Coates: Symphony No 15 ‘Homage to Mozart’
A Eliasson: Symphony No 4
P Glass: Symphony No 8
Penderecki: Symphony No 8 ‘Songs of Transience’
Vasks: Symphony No 3
2006
Norgard: Symphony No 7
Segerstam: Symphony No 151 ‘Challenging the risks.....’
Segerstam: Symphony No 162 ‘Doubling the number for Bergen’
2007
J Adams: Dr Atomic Symphony (revised version)
Aho: Symphony No 14 ‘Rituals’
McCabe: Symphony No 7 ‘Labyrinth’
D Matthews: Symphony No 6
Rueda: Symphony No 3 ‘Luz’
Segerstam: Symphony No 181 ‘Names itself when played’
2008
J Gallagher: Sinfonietta (revised version)
T Marco: Symphony No 8 ‘Gaia’s Dance’
Part: Symphony No 4
Ruders: Symphony No 4
Segerstam: Symphony No 212
2009
Broadstock: Symphony No 6 ‘Tyranny of Distance’
C Gunning: Symphony No 5
T Marco: Symphony No 9 ‘Thalassa’
2010
Aho: Symphony No 15
D Matthews: Symphony No 7
2011
P Glass: Symphony No 9
Norgard: Symphony No 8
Rouse: Symphony No 3
2012
Maxwell Davies: Symphony No 9
P Glass: Symphony No 10
Mustonen: Symphony No 1 ‘Tuuri’
A Schultz: Symphony No 3 ‘Century’
Stucky: Symphony

We won't forget Arthur Butterworth , and I like to add:
2015:
Yiu
2009
Gothe symphony 2 "sut Lacrimae Rerum
Pärt Symphony 4
Ketting Symphony 4
2007
Swayne Symphony 1 "A small world"
2006
Eliasson Symphony 4
2005
Simons Symphony 1 opus 26
Wars Symphony 1
2000:
Brewaeys:
Symphony 6

[richardfinegold]

Having in the last week listened to the third Symphonies of Schnitke and Per Norgard, I personally think that when Contemporary Composers work they are very conscious of the 300 or so years of Symphonic Tradition, and their work tends to be as deconstructionist as actually constructionist. Somehow being deconstructionist, and viewing tradition with a jaundiced eye, strikes me as something that would lead to creative ennuii much faster than merely speaking without irony.
Another factor at work: most Concerts that I have attended that feature premieres use them as curtain raisers. The Orchestras commissioning these short works are trying to achieve two things: 1) demonstrate that they are committed to New Music, and 2) Not frighten off traditional audiences by prompting the fear that they may be wasting most of the evening and their ticket money on a contemporary piece that they fear they will hate. The emphasis on commissioning curtain raisers would inevitably lead to the decreased outcome of more ambitious fare such as Symphonies.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There's also Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings Symphony.

[Pabmusic]

I wrote a symphony in 1975. It was performed in Merton College chapel in 1989 and I started revising it in 2007, just before I had a stroke. If I complete the revision, will it count?

[visualnickmos]

I wrote a symphony in 1975. It was performed in Merton College chapel in 1989 and I started revising it in 2007, just before I had a stroke. If I complete the revision, will it count?

Yes - it would, surely. Writing a symphony - that is fantastic. Maybe we'll get a chance to hear it one day. Was the Merton College performance recorded?

[ahinton]

I wrote a symphony in 1975. It was performed in Merton College chapel in 1989 and I started revising it in 2007, just before I had a stroke. If I complete the revision, will it count?

As you have written one, of course it would count! Why mightn't it not? I wish you well in revising the work and hope that you can secure another performance once you've completed that.

I think that, on the evidence provided, the symphony is far from not dead; the difference between now and, say, 75 years or so ago is perhaps that a smaller proportion of composers today feel drawn to the creation of symphonies. David Matthews told me not long after the première of his Sixth Symphony (arguably the best of them all) that he would write no more symphonies (although he omitted to say why). Hindsight has most fortunately demonstrated that he lied.

That said, the "pull" of that symphony can at times be quite remarkable; consider, for example, Elliott Carter, who wrote at least one symphony in his youth before the one that we know as his first from the early 1940s but who, following that wartime work, did not write a symphony for more than half a century yet, when he came to do so in his latter 80s, he came up with one of his greatest achievement in Symphonia: sum fluxæ pretium spei (and yes, I know about A symphony of three orchestras but, in this, I think that he was using the term "symphony" in an older sense, rather as Stravinsky had done in Symphonies of wind instruments whose title is a giveaway in that he uses the plural of symphony for a single piece). That "pull" can also perhaps be in the opposite direction; consider Richard Strauss, who wrote two symphonies in his youth but then transferred his symphonic allegiances to works other than symphonies per se.

I once thought that I would write symphonies; I rather doubt that I will now, although this may in part be due to the fact that one can obviously write a symphonic work without feeling any obligation to call it a "symphony".