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A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts.
Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste … en cinq parties Op. 14, is a programmatic symphony written by Hector Berlioz in 1830. The first performance was at the Paris Conservatoire on 5 December 1830.
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Russian Romantic period. He was director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1905 and 1928 and was instrumental in the reorganization of the institute into the Petrograd Conservatory, then the Leningrad Conservatory, following the Bolshevik Revolution. He continued as head of the Conservatory until 1930, though he had left the Soviet Union in 1928 and did not return. The best-known student under his tenure during the early Soviet years was Dmitri Shostakovich.
The Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10, by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1924–1925, and first performed in Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Nicolai Malko on 12 May 1926. Shostakovich wrote the work as his graduation piece at the Petrograd Conservatory, completing it at the age of 19.
The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, also known as the Pathétique Symphony, is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer entitled the work "The Passionate Symphony", employing a Russian word, Патетическая (Pateticheskaya), meaning "passionate" or "emotional", which was then translated into French as pathétique, meaning "solemn" or "emotive".
Symphony No. 12 in D minor, Op. 112, subtitled The Year 1917, was composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1961. He dedicated it to the memory of Vladimir Lenin. Although the performance on October 1, 1961, by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky was billed as the official premiere, the actual first performance took place two hours earlier that same day in Kuybyshev by the Kuybyshev State Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Abram Stasevich.
The Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major, Op. 70, was composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1945. It was premiered on 3 November 1945 in Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky.
The Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13, is a four-movement composition for orchestra written from January to October 1895 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. He composed it at his Ivanovka estate near Tambov, Russia. Despite its poor initial reception, the symphony is now seen as a dynamic representation of the Russian symphonic tradition, with British composer Robert Simpson calling it "a powerful work in its own right, stemming from Borodin and Tchaikovsky, but convinced, individual, finely constructed, and achieving a genuinely tragic and heroic expression that stands far above the pathos of his later music."
Mykola Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky was the purported author of a famous musical hoax Symphony No. 21 (Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky), perpetrated by composer and violinist Mikhail Goldstein.
Symphony No. 7 is the name given to a four-movement symphony in E major drafted by Franz Schubert in August 1821. Although the work is structurally complete, Schubert only orchestrated the slow introduction and the first 110 bars of the first movement. The rest of the work is continued on 14-stave score pages as a melodic line with occasional basses or counterpoints, giving clues as to changes in orchestral texture.
The Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, Op. 48, was written by Alexander Glazunov in 1893. The symphony was a departure from Glazunov's three earlier symphonies, which were based on nationalistic Russian tunes and, according to the composer, allowed him to give "personal, free, and subjective impressions of myself."
The Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 55, was written by Alexander Glazunov from April to October 1895. Although in this symphony Glazunov returned to his conventional four-movement layout he frequently utilizes thematic transformation.
Piano Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 28, is a piano sonata by Sergei Rachmaninoff, completed in 1908. It is the first of three "Dresden pieces", along with the Symphony No. 2 and part of an opera, which were composed in the quiet city of Dresden, Germany. It was originally inspired by Goethe's tragic play Faust; although Rachmaninoff abandoned the idea soon after beginning composition, traces of this influence can still be found. After numerous revisions and substantial cuts made at the advice of his colleagues, he completed it on April 11, 1908. Konstantin Igumnov gave the premiere in Moscow on October 17, 1908. It received a lukewarm response there, and remains one of the least performed of Rachmaninoff's works.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed his Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 1, between 1861 and 1865 under the guidance of Mily Balakirev. Balakirev also premiered the work at a concert of the Free Music School in December 1865. Rimsky-Korsakov revised the work in 1884.
The Russian Symphony Concerts were a series of Russian classical music concerts hosted by timber magnate and musical philanthropist Mitrofan Belyayev in St. Petersburg as a forum for young Russian composers to have their orchestral works performed. While a number of works by these composers were performed, pieces written by composers of the previous generation such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev were also played there.
Alexander Glazunov composed his Symphony No. 3 in D major, Op. 33, in 1890, and it was published by 1892 by the Leipzig firm owned by Mitrofan Belyayev. The symphony is dedicated to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and was first performed in St. Petersburg in December 1890 under the baton of Anatoly Lyadov. The symphony is considered a transitional work, with Glazunov largely eschewing the influences of Balakirev, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov inherent in his earlier symphonies for the newer influences of Tchaikovsky and Wagner. Because of this change, the Third has been called the "anti-kuchkist" symphony in Glazunov's output. He would tone down these new influences in his subsequent symphonies as he strove for an eclectic mature style. The Third also shows a greater depth of expression, most evident in the chromatic turns of its third movement, reminiscent of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde.
Stenka Razin, Op. 13, is a symphonic poem composed by Alexander Glazunov in 1885. Dedicated to the memory of Alexander Borodin, it is one of the few compositions written by Glazunov on a nationalist subject and is composed in a style reminiscent of Borodin and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's relations with the group of composers known as the Belyayev circle, which lasted from 1887 until Tchaikovsky's death in 1893, influenced all of their music and briefly helped shape the next generation of Russian composers. This group was named after timber merchant Mitrofan Belyayev, an amateur musician who became an influential music patron and publisher after he had taken an interest in Alexander Glazunov's work. By 1887, Tchaikovsky was firmly established as one of the leading composers in Russia. A favorite of Tsar Alexander III, he was widely regarded as a national treasure. He was in demand as a guest conductor in Russia and Western Europe, and in 1890 visited the United States in the same capacity. By contrast, the fortunes of the nationalistic group of composers known as The Five, which preceded the Belyayev circle, had waned, and the group had long since dispersed; of its members, only Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov remained fully active as a composer. Now a professor of musical composition and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Rimsky-Korsakov had become a firm believer in the Western-based compositional training that had been once frowned upon by the group.
The Symphony in E-flat, Op. 1, is the first published work composed by Igor Stravinsky during his apprenticeship with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. It is also his first composition for orchestra. Of classical structure, it is broadly influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov, Tchaikovsky and Wagner. It was composed in 1905–1907 and revised in 1913. It lasts for about forty minutes.
The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major, Op. 83, was composed by Alexander Glazunov in 1905, and was published two years later. This four-movement symphony was premiered on December 22, 1906 in Saint Petersburg, the composer conducting. It was an important influence on Igor Stravinsky's Symphony in E-flat.
References
- ↑ I︠A︡strebt︠s︡ev, V. V.; Jonas, Florence, trans. (1985) Reminiscences of Rimsky-Korsakov at Google Books, page 519, note 10. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-05260-X.
- ↑ Engel: Glazunov as a Symphonist (1907) in Campbell, Stuart (2003). Russians on Russian Music, 1880-1917: An Anthology at Google Books, pp. 155-6. Cambridge, U.K., New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-59097-3.
