The Symphony No. 2 in C minor by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection Symphony, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. This symphony was one of Mahler's most popular and successful works during his lifetime. It was his first major work that established his lifelong view of the beauty of afterlife and resurrection. In this large work, the composer further developed the creativity of "sound of the distance" and creating a "world of its own", aspects already seen in his First Symphony. The work has a duration of 80 to 90 minutes, and is conventionally labelled as being in the key of C minor; the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians labels the work's tonality as C minor–E♭ major. It was voted the fifth-greatest symphony of all time in a survey of conductors carried out by the BBC Music Magazine.
The Symphony No. 7 by Gustav Mahler was written in 1904–05, with repeated revisions to the scoring. It is sometimes referred to by the title Song of the Night, which Mahler never knew. Although the symphony is often described as being in the key of E minor, its tonal scheme is more complicated. The symphony's first movement moves from B minor (introduction) to E minor, and the work ends with a rondo finale in C major. Thus, as Dika Newlin has pointed out, "in this symphony Mahler returns to the ideal of 'progressive tonality' which he had abandoned in the Sixth". The complexity of the work's tonal scheme was analysed in terms of "interlocking structures" by Graham George.
The Symphony No. 6 in A minor by Gustav Mahler is a symphony in four movements, composed in 1903 and 1904, with revisions from 1906. It is sometimes nicknamed the Tragic ("Tragische"), though the origin of the name is unclear.
The Symphony No. 9 in C major, D 944, known as The Great, is the final symphony completed by Franz Schubert. It was first published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1849 as "Symphonie / C Dur / für großes Orchester" and listed as Symphony No. 8 in the New Schubert Edition. Originally called The Great C major to distinguish it from his Symphony No. 6, the Little C major, the subtitle is now usually taken as a reference to the symphony's majesty. Unusually long for a symphony of its time, a typical performance of The Great lasts an hour when all repeats indicated in the score are taken. The symphony was not professionally performed until a decade after Schubert's death.
Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759, commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony, is a musical composition that Schubert started in 1822 but left with only two movements—though he lived for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages orchestrated, also survives.
The Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43, by Jean Sibelius was started in winter 1901 in Rapallo, Italy, shortly after the successful premiere of the popular Finlandia, and finished in 1902 in Finland. Sibelius said, "My second symphony is a confession of the soul."
The Piano Concerto No. 4 in C minor, Op. 44 was composed by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1875. It was premièred on October 31, 1875, at the Théâtre du Châtelet of Paris, with the composer as the soloist. The concerto is dedicated to Anton Door, a professor of piano at the Vienna Conservatory. It continues to be one of Saint-Saëns' most popular piano concertos, second only to the Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor.
The Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was composed between May and August 1888 and was first performed in Saint Petersburg at the Mariinsky Theatre on November 17 of that year with Tchaikovsky conducting. It is dedicated to Theodor Avé-Lallemant.
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, is a symphony by Johannes Brahms. The work was written in the summer of 1883 at Wiesbaden, nearly six years after he completed his Symphony No. 2. In the interim Brahms had written some of his greatest works, including the Violin Concerto, two overtures, and Piano Concerto No. 2.
The Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56, known as the Scottish, is a symphony by Felix Mendelssohn, composed between 1829 and 1842.
The Piano Sonata No. 3 in F-sharp minor, Op. 23, by Alexander Scriabin was composed between 1897 and 1898. The sonata consists of four movements, typically spanning 18 minutes in performance.
The Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52, by Jean Sibelius is a symphony in three movements composed in 1907. Coming between the romantic intensity of Sibelius's first two symphonies and the more austere complexity of his later symphonies, it is a good-natured, triumphal, and deceptively simple-sounding piece. The symphony's first performance was given by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society, conducted by the composer, on 25 September 1907. In the same concert, his suite from the incidental music to Belshazzar's Feast, Op. 51, was also performed for the first time. It is dedicated to the British composer Granville Bantock, an early champion of his work in the UK.
Anton Bruckner's Symphony in F minor, WAB 99, was written in 1863, at the end of his study period in form and orchestration by Otto Kitzler.
Alexander Scriabin's Symphony No. 1, Op. 26, in E major was written in 1899 and 1900. It is an ambitious first symphony, consisting of six movements, the last of which has a chorus and two vocal soloists. This work is one of the first in which Scriabin's idea of art morally transforming a person is clearly expressed.
Michael Haydn's Symphony No. 20 in C major, Perger 12, Sherman 20, MH 252, written in Salzburg in 1777, is one of the few of his symphonies to have a slow movement in a minor key, and one of his few C major symphonies to not include trumpets or timpani.
The Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 13, B. 41, is a classical composition by Antonín Dvořák.
Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 119, is written in two movements, like his Fourth Piano Concerto. It was composed in 1902 and is dedicated to the Dutch cellist, Joseph Hollman, who gave the first performance on February 5, 1905 in Paris. The Second Concerto is much more virtuosic than the First, but does not possess the thematic inventiveness and harmonic intricacy of the First.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed his Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G, Op. 55 in 1884, writing it concurrently with his Concert Fantasia in G, Op. 56, for piano and orchestra. The originally intended opening movement of the suite, Contrastes, instead became the closing movement of the fantasia. Both works were also intended initially as more mainstream compositions than they became; the fantasia was intended as a piano concerto, while the suite was conceived as a symphony.
The Piano Concerto in F sharp minor, Op. 20, is an early work of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915). Written in 1896, when he was 24, it was his first work for orchestra and the only concerto he composed. Scriabin completed the concerto in only a few days in the fall of 1896, but did not finish the orchestration until the following May. Belyayev paid the composer 600 rubles ; it premiered in October 1897 and was finally published in 1898.
The Symphony No. 2 in F minor was written by Richard Strauss between 1883 and 1884. It is sometimes referred to as just Symphony in F minor. He gave it the Opus number 12, and it also appears in other catalogues as TrV 126 and Hanstein A.I.2. It is not listed in von Asow's catalog.
