Symphonies with organ

[Sydney Grew]

Until recently - when I examined the score - I had not realised that Vaughan Williams's gigantic (seventy-minute) First Symphony has a prominent part for organ throughout. Has the organ been used in every recorded performance?

And what other symphonies with organ (good, bad, famous or obscure) are there?

[Pabmusic]

Saint-Saens 3, obviously, but an unusual one is Elgar 2, for which the composer authorised organ pedals for a few bars in the last movement. I think it's been recorded that way just once (Vernon Handley) but there might be more.

[VodkaDilc]

Copland Organ Symphony. A work I did not know until I heard it on R3 a few weeks ago (isn't that what R3 should be all about?). I bought the CD of the performance (Wayne Marshall with the Dallas Symphony/Litton). It's an interesting and enjoyable work.

[Pabmusic]

Copland Organ Symphony. A work I did not know until I heard it on R3 a few weeks ago (isn't that what R3 should be all about?). I bought the CD of the performance (Wayne Marshall with the Dallas Symphony/Litton). It's an interesting and enjoyable work.

The Copland Third has an organ, too.

[Nick Armstrong]

I have actually played (trombone) in Alexandre Guilmant's Symphonie No. 1 in D minor for organ and orchestra, Op. 42 (1874)

Pretty obscure, Koussevitsky used to programme it apparently... latterly recorded for Chandos by the BBC Phil under Y-P Tortelier... http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000000AUI

Perhaps one of those pieces it's more fun to play than to listen to

The slow movement's amiable enough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO5UlJ9O-ZQ

[Suffolkcoastal]

The Copland Third has an organ, too.

The Copland 3rd doesn't include an organ.

Yes the organ is certainly present in the Bax 2nd

A number of French works e.g. Dupre, also Panufnik 7th, Paul Creston 6th, Hoddinott 7th, Diamond 10th, just for starters. There are plenty more.

[BBMmk2]

Ive played that as well Caqli. The audience seemed to like, where I was.

Stanford has written a concertante piece, called, Concert Piece for organ and orchestra, op.181.

[Tevot]

The Manfred Symphony by Tchaikovsky. The Organ comes in towards the very end. I know that some board members find it bathetic - but I find the coda to The Manfred quite haunting.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Nick Armstrong]

Caqli

[BBMmk2]

Well, they did like it!! :)

[ahinton]

The Manfred Symphony by Tchaikovsky. The Organ comes in towards the very end. I know that some board members find it bathetic - but I find the coda to The Manfred quite haunting.

I fear that I am one of those who finds the coda to the Manfred quite a let-down although, in mitigation, this is in large part because the rest of the work is so marvellous!

[Black Swan]

I quite like the Copland Symphony but am always reminded of this quote from Walter Damrosch

The nonmainstream Organ Symphony, having never entered the Copland hit parade, remains best known for the remark conductor Walter Damrosch made to the audience at the New York premiere. He quipped that if a composer so young can write a symphony like this, in five years he'll be ready to commit murder.

Really times have changed.

[Sir Velo]

Widor and Vierne composed a whole stack of organ symphonies. Poul Ruders has done one more recently.

Mahler 8 has a prominent part for the organ.

Brian's Gothic symphony, of course.

[jayne lee wilson]

Panufnik's 7th Symphony, the "Metasinfonia", is scored for organ, timpani and strings. Probably his least known, least performed work, a dark and serious 25' to accompany dark and serious meditation. Or just bathe in its sonorities.

In the notes to his 8th Symphony ("Alles Vergangliche, Symphony for Organ") Kalevi Aho comments (pricelessly, one may feel...) that it is "a very challenging work for the performer, not least owing to the large number of notes it contains".
Shame I never got round to hearing it, really.

With Ahinton all the way about the Manfred. Shame Piotr Ilyich put the organ in at all. To be honest, don't much care for the fugue either... (v. Elgar 2, Rachmaninov 3...)

[BBMmk2]

Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, string and timpani? i am surprised no-one has mentioned this one?