What’s Your Favourite Symphony?

[Bryn]

The first three movements are really good the comes the banale!

A Serviceable rescue?

[Serial_Apologist]

In a change of mind, I'm now going for

Roberto Gerhard Symphony No 1 (1953)

[makropulos]

Today's choice: Brahms 3.

[Bryn]

In a change of mind, I'm now going for

Roberto Gerhard Symphony No 1 (1953)

I'm sticking with Ives 4th. A pity that he did not finish the Universe Symphony, and that David Gray Porter's realisation did not come to fruition.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Personally I find Beethoven's 9th one of the greatest and most moving pieces of music ever composed. Perhaps over-ambitious, in that even Beethoven isn't quite able to master the monumental task he has set himself. Perhaps the Variation form used in the finale isn't strong enough a frame on which to bear the message Beethoven is seeking to communicate. But banal & bombastic it certainly is not.

[Barbirollians]

Personally I find Beethoven's 9th one of the greatest and most moving pieces of music ever composed. Perhaps over-ambitious, in that even Beethoven isn't quite able to master the monumental task he has set himself. Perhaps the Variation form used in the finale isn't strong enough a frame on which to bear the message Beethoven is seeking to communicate. But banal & bombastic it certainly is not.

Agreed entirely - the slow movement is probably my favourite movement of any symphony.

[EdgeleyRob]

The first 3 movements are hairs on the back of the neck stuff but the finale makes me cringe.
We've had this discussion many times.

[Petrushka]

Personally I find Beethoven's 9th one of the greatest and most moving pieces of music ever composed. Perhaps over-ambitious, in that even Beethoven isn't quite able to master the monumental task he has set himself. Perhaps the Variation form used in the finale isn't strong enough a frame on which to bear the message Beethoven is seeking to communicate. But banal & bombastic it certainly is not.

Agreed.

All these people telling Beethoven: 'Sorry, LvB, actually your 9th isn't very good!'

[DublinJimbo]

We've had this discussion many times.

Yes, I've seen this many times here and I still fail to agree with the negativity. Some complain about the variation structure, whereas I adore it. Some complain about 'bombast': no way. As a teenager, I had great difficulty with the ninth. The slow movement affected me most, and still does, but in my advanced years I am awestruck by the extraordinary achievement that this symphony is. Was there ever anything like this before? No. Who was the visionary who stretched the envelope? Beethoven. In the context of this thread I wouldn't nominate it as my 'favourite symphony' but there can be no gainsaying that it is a towering achievement by one of the greatest of all musical minds.

[jayne lee wilson]

The first two movements really need tightening up too - far too repetitive, as if Beethoven didn't know when to stop. I think this is where Bruckner caught the affliction from.

Bruckner composed 9, very great, very original, utterly distinct symphonies (and two fairly interesting apprentice works..)... what on earth is this "affliction" you speak of? Apart from overwhelming musical genius?

Or perhaps you would like to point out where, in any individual movement, Bruckner is "far too repetitive"? And what he might have done differently? How often, for example, in the finale of his 7th, is the first theme repeated in its original shape? And how many variants of that melody (and the third main idea, closely related to the first) do we hear as the movement progresses?
Far from being too repetitive, Bruckner's themes undergo a process of continuous, often densely contrapuntal, evolution, as they attempt to establish, and/or challenge, various harmonic plateaux. Especially in the finales, the music constantly changes thematic shape and structural direction, often at speed.

Bruckner learnt from Beethoven's 9th, yes; but it was really only an inspirational launchpad for his own far-flung, endlessly imaginative and inventive, symphonic world.

***
As for the finale of the Beethoven 9th, it's worth quoting Robert Simpson (yet) again:

"The last moment of the 9th is an organic blend of variations and sonata, with both introduction and symphonic coda, and not without a suggestion of rondo. Structurally it is a summing-up of classical possibilities, all expressed in a single huge design with astonishing certainty of touch; it even has the shade of the classical concerto in it, as if Beethoven, like Bach in The Art of Fugue, were intent on encompassing everything he knew in one mighty act".

I'm not really surprised that some listeners find this combination of instantly, universally appealing melodic and jazzily rhythmical inspiration, the shout-out-loud joyful abandonment, with a free-flowing structural comprehensiveness and complexity, a tough call.
I think again of Basil Bunting's poem on Pound's Cantos:


"On the Fly-Leaf of Pound’s Cantos
There are the Alps. What is there to say about them?
They don’t make sense. Fatal glaciers, crags cranks climb,
jumbled boulder and weed, pasture and boulder, scree,
et l’on entend, maybe, le refrain joyeux et leger.
Who knows what the ice will have scraped on the rock it is smoothing?

There they are, you will have to go a long way round
if you want to avoid them.
It takes some getting used to. There are the Alps,
fools! Sit down and wait for them to crumble!"

The Symphony No.9 by Ludwig Van Beethoven shows little sign of crumbling just yet...

[MickyD]

Agreed.

All these people telling Beethoven: 'Sorry, LvB, actually your 9th isn't very good!'

Well, to be honest, I didn't actually say that, I just remarked that I personally didn't like it.

[gurnemanz]

There are the Alps. What is there to say about them?

Maybe someone should write a symphony about them.

[cloughie]

The first 3 movements are hairs on the back of the neck stuff but the finale makes me cringe.
We've had this discussion many times.

Indeed we have but you're spot on!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Agreed.

All these people telling Beethoven: 'Sorry, LvB, actually your 9th isn't very good!'

Well, to be honest, I didn't actually say that, I just remarked that I personally didn't like it.

Indeed so - and Suffy's comments about Beethoven being not "quite able to master the monumental task he set himself", and his having chosen a structure that can't "bear the message [he was] seeking to communicate" (? only "seeking"??!!) is far more "telling Beethoven [his] 9th isn't very good" than a simple expression of dislike.

Of course, someone might suggest that such "simple expression" might be Off Topic, but that is a different matter ...

[Ferretfancy]

The first 3 movements are hairs on the back of the neck stuff but the finale makes me cringe.
We've had this discussion many times.

It works better live rather than recorded,but the failure to get ideal singers often defeats it.

The Choral Fantasia is nice isn't it? More fun.