Are You A 'New World' Symphony Snob?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Round about the time when a single pop LP became an album, I think. In my youth, collections of 78s or LPs in a box were albums, but in the sixties the name got hijacked. There's no reason why this should irritate me, but it does.

Yes - recordings of Symphonies on multiple 78s had to be put together in an album (looking very like a photograph album, too) - and the word stuck when long works could be fitted onto a single LP.

[Roehre]

Totally off-topic, but when did a collection of symphonies come to be known as a 'cycle'? Several posts in this thread refer to a 'cycle' of Dvoak's symphonies; I don't know enough (anything) about them, but do thet really have the interconnectedness that the term 'cycle' implies? Or is it a handy marketing term for record companies, suggesting that you should buy complete sets?

From the 1960s -as soon as multi-LP-sets appeared -[afaik Beethoven/Karajan 1962 the very first], it is nice to read the differences in titles from what we now seem to call "cycles".

The Complete Beethoven Symphonies (English) -
Beethoven L'Intégrale des Symphonies (French) -
Sämtliche Beethoven Symphonien (German)

But "cycle" or "cyclus" or "Zyklus" are words used as far back as the 1920s and 1930s to describe a concert series comprising of all symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas or whatever of one composer within one concert season, at least on the Continent. Mengelberg conducted an annual Beethoven-cyclus in Amsterdam, e.g.

[cloughie]

Yes - recordings of Symphonies on multiple 78s had to be put together in an album (looking very like a photograph album, too) - and the word stuck when long works could be fitted onto a single LP.

I think the pop LP was an LP over here well into the 1970s and Album was an Americanism which crept in and gradually became common parlance. The Symphony cycle was definitely a sixties phenomenon. The first one I was conscious of, was Karajan's Beethoven Symphonies. There were others prior to this that grew to become cycles but the Karajan Beethoven was I think the first one to be recorded over a relatively short period of time and issued in a box.

[Roehre]

Much as I thought

& sorry to continue OT - I wonder how many composers, if any, have actually written a symphonic cycle - Mahler, perhaps (or more than one)?

AFAIK symphony cycles are rare, but not completely unheard of:

Dittersdorf: 6 symphonies on Ovid's Metamorphoses
Haydn: nos. 6-7-8 "Tageszeiten" (and perhaps the 6 Paris and 12 London symphonies)
Alwyn: 1-4 [essentially one symphony in four parts and 12 mvts]
Raff: 8-11 (seasons)
DSCH 11+12 (1905 and 1917; if that constitues a cycle, that is)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

DSCH 11+12 (1905 and 1917; if that constitues a cycle, that is)

A bi-cycle?

[Pabmusic]

AFAIK symphony cycles are rare, but not completely unheard of:

Dittersdorf: 6 symphonies on Ovid's Metamorphoses
Haydn: nos. 6-7-8 "Tageszeiten" (and perhaps the 6 Paris and 12 London symphonies)
Alwyn: 1-4 [essentially one symphony in four parts and 12 mvts]
Raff: 8-11 (seasons)
DSCH 11+12 (1905 and 1917; if that constitues a cycle, that is)

Carl Ditters actually wrote 12, but six were lost, though piano duet versions (of three at leat) have surfaced.

[Roehre]

Carl Ditters actually wrote 12, but six were lost, though piano duet versions (of three at leat) have surfaced.

It is also likely that a fourth symphony belonging to Haydn's Tageszeiten is lost, btw.

[Lat-Literal]

I suppose if I had to state an order of preference for the Dvorak symphonies, it would be:

8, 9, 6, 3, 7, 5, 1, 4, 2.

The lowly position of number 7 is the result of studying it at university in 1971 with a lecturer who couldn't make the Science Museum interesting.

My order would be:

9, 8, 4, 6, 7, 3, 5, 2, 1

That's not intended to reflect artistic merit, just 'animal instinct'.

My order of preference

(with minus marks for (a) the more bombastic and (b) the non-descript)

9, 3, 7, 8, 2, 4, 6, 1, 5

[Once Was 4]

I suppose if I had to state an order of preference for the Dvorak symphonies, it would be:

8, 9, 6, 3, 7, 5, 1, 4, 2.

The lowly position of number 7 is the result of studying it at university in 1971 with a lecturer who couldn't make the Science Museum interesting.

Interesting that No 5 in F comes fairly low in people's 'likes'. When I was a student in the late 60s there was a vogue for this symphony sparked off by Istvan Kertesz's performances and recording with the LSO. We played it in our student orchestra under the baton of the irascible Maurice Handford and we all fell in love with it. Sadly, I have never had an opportunity to play it since but I listen to recordings of it when I can (as last week whilst in the Isle of Man - three of us went for a morning drive and it was on the CD player).

However I sat next to a player, day in day out for over 15 years who could not stand Brahms (a bit unusual for a horn player). But she loved Dvorak 7 which we played several times (once with Sir Charles Groves which I remember in particular). I used to wind her up by saying that it was "the symphony which Brahms never wrote" which she could not see at all (I also called Schrecker's 'Die Ferne Klang' the "opera which Mahler never wrote" and she could see that). Discuss.

BTW: You can play the 'New World' as often as you like for me - like Greig's Piano Concerto and, especially, Beethoven's 5th, I cannot tire of it.

[cloughie]

My order of preference

(with minus marks for (a) the more bombastic and (b) the non-descript)

9, 3, 7, 8, 2, 4, 6, 1, 5

3-9 1st equal
2 8th
1 9th

[Roehre]

Interesting that No 5 in F comes fairly low in people's 'likes'. When I was a student in the late 60s there was a vogue for this symphony sparked off by Istvan Kertesz's performances and recording with the LSO. We played it in our student orchestra under the baton of the irascible Maurice Handford and we all fell in love with it. ....

I love the pastoral atmosphere of Symphony no.5 in F opus 24 [aka Symphony no.3 in F op.76]
I am always surprised again and again by the "one" middle movement, AFAIK at that time (1875) unique - a structural novelty.

[Barbirollians]

I am also baffled to see Dvorak 5 ranked lowly in the pantheon . A lovely work - Kertesz and Mariss Jansons EMI recording being my favourites .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I am also baffled to see Dvorak 5 ranked lowly in the pantheon . A lovely work - Kertesz and Mariss Jansons EMI recording being my favourites .

It was the first Symphony in my "list" in #128 - I think 5 and 6 are my favourites of the Dvorak Symphonies: utterly irresistible good spirits, and the composer's overflowing lyricism at its very best, IMO.

(And Guzenhauser's recordings on NAXOS really capture the joy of this Music.)

[Roehre]

It was the first Symphony in my "list" in #122(-ish) - I think 5 and 6 are my favourite of the Dvorak Symphonies: utterly irresistible good spirits, and the composer's overflowing lyricism at its very best, IMO.
..

6i has got one of the most brilliant codas in the symphonic literature IMO

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

6i has got one of the most brilliant codas in the symphonic literature IMO