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I think that the list of composers is very detailed in some cases, while in others it doesn't even provide the time period. Definite cleanup needed. Also, I dont think there are enough clips - I mean, beethoven was hardly the only great symphonic composer. I've completely rewritten the 1911 stuff that was here - the old article is in the history here should anybody want to use it as a source. What I've written needs a lot of work and expansion, but I think it's better than what we had before. -- Camembert
Does this mean you are for or against calling Prokoviev a Soviet composer, or are you adopting a neutral stance? What about calling him a Russian composer, or even a Ukranian composer? Gene Ward Smith
I really doubt this (from the list of symphonists):
I doubt very much that we can say who the composer of the "first real symphony" is - the form sort of evolved, there's no one moment you can point to and say "there, that's the beginning of the symphony". But in any case, I don't think that Torelli wrote anything that could really be called a symphony - I don't know what this "Sinfonia à 4" is (I think Torelli actually wrote several pieces with that title), but my guess is that it's either a ripieno concerto (see article for an explanation) or a sonata of some sort. I'm going to leave it in the article for now, though, while I can get to some books. -- Camembert
A syngonia is pretty much the same thing as a french overture so it's almost impossible for this Sinfonia à 4 to really be a symphony. since symphonies grew out of early eighteenth cetury overtures. 75.156.81.230 ( talk) 19:50, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Torelli was indeed the composer of the first actual symphonies, although he made little distinction over sinfonia/concerti grossi/sonata. I got the information from The Encyclopedia of Classical Music, which, on page 133, reads:
Early symphonies: >Torelli's symphonies/concerti/sonatas (he was inconsistent over terminology) include possibly the first truly symphonic piece, the Sinfonia à 4 (Symphony of Fours), G33, for two orchestras totalling four oboes and four trumpets, with bassoon, trombone, timpani, strings, and two organs. Such splendour was rare before 1700.
Then it goes on to list other early symphonies including Vivaldi 's Concerto ripieno in B-flat, RV163 and Concerto ripieno on D minor, RV127, William Boyce's three-movement overture to Peleus and Thetis, Lotelli's six Indroduzioni teatrale for strings in 1735, and Wilhelm Friederich Bach's strange Symphony in F, F67, a four-movement suite in all but name.
I believe that is enough evidence, although you can see for youself, as the book costs US$16.07 in Amazon.com and is worth the price. -- Gerhard
I went to the books and made notes, but I'm not going to do anything to the article for a while - I'm fed up with it just at the minute, I'll give it a week or so (this shouldn't stop other people editing it in the meantime, of course). But in brief: no books I looked at considered Torelli to be a composer of symphonies - the symphony is really a Classical form by definition, so while Baroque composers might have written concerti or suites or whatever that resemble symphonies, they're not regarded as being part of the symphonic tradition. I'll try to clarify things when I have another go at the article. -- Camembert
Prokoviev was born in the Ukraine long before there was a Soviet Union, and spent much of his creative either before or outside of the USSR. Why is he a "Soviet composer"? Gene Ward Smith
In India, people often used to tell Ilayaraaja did compose symphony, but couldn't find his name in the article and list. Could someone clarify this? TIA -- Rrjanbiah 09:02, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
<Rrjanbiah adds a line for Ilayaraaja.>
I agree with you. But the following ideas/myths(?)/unverified info are *much* prevalent here:
And moreover, if he is been credited, it is de facto to add "he is the first Asian to compose...". -- Rrjanbiah 08:30, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I put a cleanup tag on this article. It's really cobbled together and doesn't flow well at all. A good example of the problem is that in both 19th and 20th century sections it mentions the French composers of organ symphonies as if they weren't referenced before. There's some other issues too (including this mess of a talk page...) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 22:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
No kidding! It's a total mess. Should the article really start with characteristics? Why not start with a definition. The article reeks of too many cooks, no overall plan nor structure. It's awful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.234.24 ( talk) 16:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
To the author of Cleanup: are you the pedant who plastered Citation needed all over this? Look, most countries in the world have music schools (Saudi Arabia maybe the only exception), and in most such schools the development of music in Europe is studied, because there a mechanism for writing music down on paper was devised, so music developed into very sophisticated [citation needed?] forms.
The upshot is that there are literally hundreds of millions of people who would understand (not know, UNDERSTAND) a statement such as "Beethoven developed and expanded the symphony into a form which lasted a century". You would insist on a Citation for this. And you'd also look an idiot to hundreds of millions. So are you going to delete this edit? Edetic ( talk) 10:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Hallo,I'm verry intressted in the Changes that happend in the different registers of the orchestra in the time between Mozart and Strauss.For example: some Instruments diappeared,others arrived and even others changed pitch and tuning (trumpets) and I keep thinking about the ideas behind it.Verry grateful for any answer. 85.3.53.193 14:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC) MICHAEL NEUMANN 02 13 07
Thank you,Jerome I did and it answers many questions,but brings up others as well. Greatings, Michael. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.3.152.147 ( talk) 14:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC).
I went ahead and spun off the long list of symphonies into List of symphony composers, as it was overtaking the mainspace of the article. I know it looks kinda bad at the moment, so feel free to help clean things up. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 12:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I removed the "characteristics" section from the article. It was redundant with much of the later discussion.
I removed some of the discussion too. The article implicitly idealised the development of the symphony in terms of a concerted effort to realise an implicit beautiful, perfect, Platonic symphonic (four-movement) form, which became fully-formed some time in the eighteenth century thanks to Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven. But "symphonic form" as presented here is an analytical convenience that was abstracted from extant works by later theoreticians.
The article was full of composers implicitly or explicitly "setting new standards". But when composers wrote symphonies, they didn't enter some form of competition to "develop the form" or "set standards". Each symphony can be taken on its own terms rather than being measured by its predecessors.
There were other generalisations that didn't stand up to scrutiny. For instance, "symphonies grew in length" completely ignores a whole swathe of symphonies including those by Sibelius, and this development (if it was a coherent conscious development) didn't "finish with Mahler" (Brian's Gothic?).
I removed much of the etymological discussion: I retained some as helpful background, but most of it was completely off-topic for this article. Perhaps the word itself is notable enough to warrant an article? Or does this content have a place at wikt:symphony? -- RobertG ♬ talk 13:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Maybe there's room to discuss this. It's not unusual for symphonies to include a set of variations for one of the movements - although not usually the 1st or last movements. Exceptions would include Karl Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony (1st movement) and Brahms's 4th symphony (last movement). -- JackofOz ( talk) 21:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
I notice that editor Redheylin has removed the category "Musical forms" from this article (as well as a number of others). May I ask the reasoning here?— Jerome Kohl ( talk) 00:37, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Essentially, the Symphony is a Sonata for orchestra. There are works that are symphonies that are not exactly for orchestra. The Symphony is marked by a continuous progression of growth. The symphony develops and every part of it is an aspect of the dynamic of the work's growth. Pieces which are not so completely thought out are not necessarily real symphonies.
Gingermint (
talk)
06:35, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi. The ABC Classic FM radio station is currently running a Classic 100 Symphony poll (closes end of June 2009). I thought it might be of interest to those visiting this page (both to vote, and to perhaps incorporate the results into the article). Note that ABC Classic FM is a government-run, non-commercial, not-for-profit organisation. I have no affiliation with the radio station or poll in any way. Enjoy. HWV258 01:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Sorry I missed your parenthetical aside, qualified by perhaps. In any case, I don't think the result of this apparently unscientific poll need be mentioned in the article. TheScotch ( talk) 08:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
The broadcasting of the countdown is happening as I type: Classic 100 Symphony (ABC). You can follow via streaming here. HWV258 05:03, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Re: "Many symphonies are tonal works in four movements with the first in sonata form, and this is often described by music theorists as the structure of a "classical" symphony, although many symphonies by the acknowledged classical masters of the form, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, do not conform to this model.":
This sounds to me like a strawman argument. I've never heard a single "music theorist" stipulate that a symphony need have four movements, and removing this artificial delimitation--which has nothing whatsoever to do with structure, the cited exceptions disappear. A much more robust definition would be: A symphony is a piece for orchestra, the first movement of which is in sonata form or some analogue of sonata form.
Re: "A symphony is a musical composition, often extended and usually for orchestra.":
If we're going to quibble that all pieces with symphony in their title are not necessarily for orchestra (Stravinsky's "A symphony of Psalms" for example) or that the term was used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance for pieces not strictly orchestral, then we'd might as well allow that it can designate the orchestra itself (symphony as an abbreviation of symphony orchestra). In other words, I find the "usually" here ridiculous. In any case, saying "a symphony is a musical composition" is saying next to nothing. I don't find it satisfactory merely to eliminate the equivocation either. If a symphony is an "extended" "musical composition" "for orchestra" then "La Mer" is one. TheScotch ( talk) 08:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
HWV, I hope you don't mind my edits: seemed simpler than to paste another copy here. "Although" doesn't work to me as a contrastive item: the two statements seem to be perfectly in accord, not in apparent contrast.
Where are these "Baroque" symphonies? Let's be careful with mere naming. We could equally say that sonatas developed in the Baroque (Bach wrote "sonatas" for solo violin and solo cello), but those works bear little or no relation to sonata form as it developed in the Classico-Romantic period.
"Slow" and "fast" are not forms; a slow movement could use binary, ternary, or a host of other forms.
I'm going to ask User:Noetica to look at this. He knows the secondary literature better than I do. Tony (talk) 03:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Re: "HWV, I hope you don't mind my edits: seemed simpler than to paste another copy here. "Although" doesn't work to me as a contrastive item: the two statements seem to be perfectly in accord, not in apparent contrast.":
I strongly object to your "edits": I can't tell what was there originally. In any case, the problem with the "although" is simply that in this version Classical and Romantic are lumped together. Sonata form is of course an invention of the Classical period, and it was retained more or less as the first movement form for symphonies, concertos, string quartets (and so on) throughout the Romantic period. TheScotch ( talk) 08:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
There are any number of compositions which are symphonies which are not titled such by their composers. There are many works with the title "Symphony" which are really no such thing at all. I've fixed the opening, and made it logical yet vague enough to make most people happy. Also, I cleaned up the writing just a little bit so it didn't sound so clunky. In truth, most symphonies are for orchestra and all symphonies are sonatas and they are all works of continuous growth, of continuous development. The fact that there are works called symphonies which are not and there are symphonies which are not called symphonies should not distract us.
Oh, and really this whole thing needs to be re-written. Some good facts here and there but the style is haphazard. I'm right in that, right? Gingermint ( talk) 06:42, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Some composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich, ... continued to write in the traditional four-movement form, while other composers took different approaches: Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 7, his last, is in one movement..."
Shostakovich's second symphony already was in one movement, too. Of his 15 Synphonies, only six (No. 1, 5, 10, 11, 12, and 15) follow the "traditional form". Actually, Sibelius's symphonic oeuvre is altogether more traditional than Shostakovich's, who started with "different approaches" from his second symphony on. (Which is to be expected, since he was 40 years older...) --
80.187.101.117 (
talk)
01:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Anyone thats reading this i am doing this for homework and i need help to breifly describe what a symphony is but it can only go as far as bathovens symphonies please help me or post a comment that would be great thanks —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.131.38.68 (
talk)
18:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
i just moved the in text citations from whatever they were (old-style mla? incorrect harvard?) to the note-reference style. I would have asked if anyone wants me to move this page to the list-defined references, except the page seems to be cited in MLA instead of APA, so if I converted citation formats _properly_, most page number information would be lost. Is there a precedent or rule describing what to do with MLA citations? in the future someone should probably switch reference styles to APA, to be more in line with the wiki tools. romnempire ( talk) 17:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
as i said in my edit on 11:45, 17 March 2011, I believe the citations on this page should be moved to a standardized format involving hyperlinks, because the content of this specific page references works in parentheses that are not citations, creating confusion for the reader and a look of dissaray for the article. As well, non-hyperlinked in text citations are difficult to edit, because they are easy to miss. Thirdly, the above reason, ability to use more powerful wiki-tools without clashing with preexisting standards, makes me believe this page should be moved to note-reference citations. Since I was already willing to put in the effort to do this work, so no extra effort needs to be expended upon it. If no objections are brought up, i will re-revert Jerome Kohl's reversion of my edit. romnempire ( talk) 09:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Why and where does this article need additional citations for verification? What references does it need and how should they be added? Hyacinth ( talk) 02:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
The "more footnotes" tag is back again. How many more does it need, and where does it need them? Antandrus (talk) 03:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
There are several Greek words used in the article, presented in Greek letters with no western alphabet equivalent offered even parenthetically. Is that really appropriate style in an English encyclopedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.149.74.143 ( talk) 21:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
That the first movement (allegro) of the classical symphony is most often in sonata form is mentioned but not in the right place. Nothing is said of the musical form of the other movements
(e.g. second movement (andante) is most often in binary form) at all. In my opinion this should be dealt with in an article called "Symphony". Contact
Basemetal
here
06:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Starting this section from scratch in order to keep to a little more focus and better explain what I think would be desirable. If you happen to have access to good sources, for exmple New Grove, I'd be surprised if they had nothing regarding this. If I had access to such sources I'd improve the article myself but I can only make these suggestions and hope that people with access to good sources will take them into account.
To repeat myself: this is an article which purports to describe the classical symphony yet nothing, or close to nothing is said of the musical forms of the various movements.
Saying something of the musical forms of the various movements could be saying (things like) mvt 1 usually fast in sonata form, mvt 2 often slow often in ternary form or in variation form or in sonata form, mvt 3 usually a minuet or scherzo in their own peculiar forms, mvt 4 finale is usually fast in rondo or sonata rondo form or whatever. But of course with more details and with examples of the practice found in a number of important examples both interesting in themselves and showing what variability can be expected. It doesn't matter if the examples above are incorrect or incomplete. They're just meant as examples. I'm not writing the article. This is a talk page. I'm just trying to give an idea of what I mean.
Finally regarding the potential expected argument that the forms are just too varied to give a "typical" description. Of course any competent treatment would deal with broad tendencies, not attempt absolute dogmatic statements. Just because you can't be comprehensive doesn't mean you can't contribute more than what we've got at the moment. As of now the reader can learn nothing about this question. Anything at all would be better than what is there at the moment.
Contact Basemetal here 10:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Um, I hope it's ok if I do a bit of (what I hope will be) TLC on this article? It has a lot of emphasis on really marginal stuff (like piano symphonies), yet fails to cover (e.g.) the symphonies of Brahms! I would like to put forth a really basic Music 101 presentation, covering the highlights of composers and repertoire and trimming back stuff that doesn't really belong in a broad-topic article like this one. Please yell at me if you object. :=) Opus33 ( talk) 17:53, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Could I bring up another topic? It concerns the current formatting of references, which seems to me rather unusual in the WP context. I'm basically fine with the Harvard system of referencing, but I feel things are different when the references are themselves links. A Harvard reference is meant to be a small, straightforward thing that the reader's eyes normally will just quickly pass over. But, when we put a link into WP article text, this generally means that it is important material that the reader may well want to click on (this is why in many cases thoughtful editors trim back "overlinking"). My intuitive impression when I read the Symphony article is that the references are attracting too much notice, as if I were supposed to click on all of them. Would it be ok for me to put them all in footnotes? Thank you. Opus33 ( talk) 19:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Dear Saxophilist, I think at present you are outnumbered by "mainstream" editors who would like this article to emphasize standard core material on symphonies (see discussion above). I'm sorry to revert your contributions, but I think we ought to have a symphony article that expresses standard emphases and views.
I think the material you are adding is very useful but you should put it in a satellite article, Symphonies for concert band, and link that from the main Symphony article.
Yours sincerely, Opus33 ( talk) 17:18, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
Jerome, I understand your point, and it's a very good point indeed. However, I would say that a significant amount of symphonies being composed for an ensemble other than the orchestra is an important development in the symphony form. Do you disagree? And I feel that mentioning some examples of this ensemble is worthwhile to the article. Saxophilist ( talk) 07:06, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Bananasoldier ( talk) 04:55, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
I like the article formatted with inline citations (linked to a Notes section), because this lists the works cited in the article directly above the Sources section, making for much easier reference compared to having to scroll up and down, back and forth, from the article's body to the sources section. I had performed this before, but it was reverted per WP:CITEVAR. Since the citations have been reinstated (by other editor(s)), placing this notice here per WP:CITEVAR to establish consensus for the change. Pinging involved editors: Qwertyxp2000, Bananasoldier, DutchTreat, Antandrus, Jerome Kohl. NORTH AMERICA 1000 20:37, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
NOTE: Based on the support shown and JK withdrawing opposition, there is consensus to migrate from Havard-style to footnotes. Over a period of time, I will start to make the changes. Thank you all for your input. - DutchTreat ( talk) 13:34, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
The following external links, I propose changing to be easier to navigate:
{{
cite web}}
: line feed character in |title=
at position 21 (
help)With two different variations: (A) terse and (B) verbose. Comments welcome! DutchTreat ( talk) 13:28, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
Somehow we ended up saying that the four-movement symphony was actually introduced into classical music by Haydn and Mozart. Reference sources I consulted indicate this is just plain not true. Ebenezer Prout is cited in support of the claim, but looking at the relevant page it seems that he says no such thing. Another error the article had was that Haydn wrote only three-movement symphonies in the earlier period of his career (Prout doesn't say this either.) I've found new reference sources, hoping to improve things. The picture seems to be that the shift to four movements was gradual, and was not initiated by either Haydn or Mozart. Sorry I'm no good at reference-formatting, please feel free to fix what I did. Opus33 ( talk) 03:20, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Hello. I would recommend that this page expand upon the critical role of Haydn in the development of the symphonic form.
Right now the article says:
This seems bizarre to me: "since the early baroque era" implies there actually were symphonies in the early baroque era! I propose that the sentence should simply begin "His Symphony No. 9 takes the unprecedented step of including parts for vocal soloists ...", unless someone objects. Opus33 ( talk) 03:26, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
From my research the musicologist, NYU professor, Jan LaRue (1918-2004) spelled his name using mixed case. Using the US LOC Authority Control file, mixed case is the preferred spelling of his family name: VIAF 34920290. It is fair to say that a few international libraries use the lowercase spelling, but not the majority. This claim is supported by several other sources including his obituary from the New York Sun and NYU (which oddly used lowercase 'r' only in the title of their article):
Jan LaRue, a musicologist and emeritus professor of music at New York University, died on Sunday, October 17, in Rye, New York, succumbing to pneumonia and complications arising from a stroke suffered in January 2003, said his wife, Marian Green LaRue. He was 86.
Jan LaRue, an expert on 18th-century music and an emeritus professor at New York University who compiled a colossal database of nearly 17,000 symphonic themes, died Sunday, the university announced.
Comments welcome before I make the changes for consistency. - DutchTreat ( talk) 00:25, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Does anyone have a copy of The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven by Antony Hopkins (1981) OCLC 715201150? I am trying to decode this statement in the article: "the scoring used in Beethoven's symphonies numbered 1, 2, 4, 7, and 8 (instrumentation of Beethoven symphonies taken from the chapter headings for each symphony in Hopkins (1981)" From looking at an on-line snippets, I believe Symphony No. 1 is Chapter 2; Symphony No. 2 is Chapter 4 on page 36; and Symphony No. 4, Chapter 7. I would some help finding the page numbers and possibly a better way of expressing the source for the instrumentation. Thank you! - DutchTreat ( talk) 10:40, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
Not denying Mahler his right to call his Eighth a symphony, but surely the main illustration here is not a particularly representative image of the performance of a symphony. Is there a better photo for the lead? 83.209.254.55 ( talk) 19:52, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Symphony article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | This article was selected as the article for improvement on 30 September 2013 for a period of one week. |
![]() | This article was selected as the article for improvement on 26 January 2015 for a period of one week. |
I think that the list of composers is very detailed in some cases, while in others it doesn't even provide the time period. Definite cleanup needed. Also, I dont think there are enough clips - I mean, beethoven was hardly the only great symphonic composer. I've completely rewritten the 1911 stuff that was here - the old article is in the history here should anybody want to use it as a source. What I've written needs a lot of work and expansion, but I think it's better than what we had before. -- Camembert
Does this mean you are for or against calling Prokoviev a Soviet composer, or are you adopting a neutral stance? What about calling him a Russian composer, or even a Ukranian composer? Gene Ward Smith
I really doubt this (from the list of symphonists):
I doubt very much that we can say who the composer of the "first real symphony" is - the form sort of evolved, there's no one moment you can point to and say "there, that's the beginning of the symphony". But in any case, I don't think that Torelli wrote anything that could really be called a symphony - I don't know what this "Sinfonia à 4" is (I think Torelli actually wrote several pieces with that title), but my guess is that it's either a ripieno concerto (see article for an explanation) or a sonata of some sort. I'm going to leave it in the article for now, though, while I can get to some books. -- Camembert
A syngonia is pretty much the same thing as a french overture so it's almost impossible for this Sinfonia à 4 to really be a symphony. since symphonies grew out of early eighteenth cetury overtures. 75.156.81.230 ( talk) 19:50, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Torelli was indeed the composer of the first actual symphonies, although he made little distinction over sinfonia/concerti grossi/sonata. I got the information from The Encyclopedia of Classical Music, which, on page 133, reads:
Early symphonies: >Torelli's symphonies/concerti/sonatas (he was inconsistent over terminology) include possibly the first truly symphonic piece, the Sinfonia à 4 (Symphony of Fours), G33, for two orchestras totalling four oboes and four trumpets, with bassoon, trombone, timpani, strings, and two organs. Such splendour was rare before 1700.
Then it goes on to list other early symphonies including Vivaldi 's Concerto ripieno in B-flat, RV163 and Concerto ripieno on D minor, RV127, William Boyce's three-movement overture to Peleus and Thetis, Lotelli's six Indroduzioni teatrale for strings in 1735, and Wilhelm Friederich Bach's strange Symphony in F, F67, a four-movement suite in all but name.
I believe that is enough evidence, although you can see for youself, as the book costs US$16.07 in Amazon.com and is worth the price. -- Gerhard
I went to the books and made notes, but I'm not going to do anything to the article for a while - I'm fed up with it just at the minute, I'll give it a week or so (this shouldn't stop other people editing it in the meantime, of course). But in brief: no books I looked at considered Torelli to be a composer of symphonies - the symphony is really a Classical form by definition, so while Baroque composers might have written concerti or suites or whatever that resemble symphonies, they're not regarded as being part of the symphonic tradition. I'll try to clarify things when I have another go at the article. -- Camembert
Prokoviev was born in the Ukraine long before there was a Soviet Union, and spent much of his creative either before or outside of the USSR. Why is he a "Soviet composer"? Gene Ward Smith
In India, people often used to tell Ilayaraaja did compose symphony, but couldn't find his name in the article and list. Could someone clarify this? TIA -- Rrjanbiah 09:02, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
<Rrjanbiah adds a line for Ilayaraaja.>
I agree with you. But the following ideas/myths(?)/unverified info are *much* prevalent here:
And moreover, if he is been credited, it is de facto to add "he is the first Asian to compose...". -- Rrjanbiah 08:30, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I put a cleanup tag on this article. It's really cobbled together and doesn't flow well at all. A good example of the problem is that in both 19th and 20th century sections it mentions the French composers of organ symphonies as if they weren't referenced before. There's some other issues too (including this mess of a talk page...) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 22:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
No kidding! It's a total mess. Should the article really start with characteristics? Why not start with a definition. The article reeks of too many cooks, no overall plan nor structure. It's awful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.234.24 ( talk) 16:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
To the author of Cleanup: are you the pedant who plastered Citation needed all over this? Look, most countries in the world have music schools (Saudi Arabia maybe the only exception), and in most such schools the development of music in Europe is studied, because there a mechanism for writing music down on paper was devised, so music developed into very sophisticated [citation needed?] forms.
The upshot is that there are literally hundreds of millions of people who would understand (not know, UNDERSTAND) a statement such as "Beethoven developed and expanded the symphony into a form which lasted a century". You would insist on a Citation for this. And you'd also look an idiot to hundreds of millions. So are you going to delete this edit? Edetic ( talk) 10:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Hallo,I'm verry intressted in the Changes that happend in the different registers of the orchestra in the time between Mozart and Strauss.For example: some Instruments diappeared,others arrived and even others changed pitch and tuning (trumpets) and I keep thinking about the ideas behind it.Verry grateful for any answer. 85.3.53.193 14:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC) MICHAEL NEUMANN 02 13 07
Thank you,Jerome I did and it answers many questions,but brings up others as well. Greatings, Michael. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.3.152.147 ( talk) 14:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC).
I went ahead and spun off the long list of symphonies into List of symphony composers, as it was overtaking the mainspace of the article. I know it looks kinda bad at the moment, so feel free to help clean things up. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 12:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I removed the "characteristics" section from the article. It was redundant with much of the later discussion.
I removed some of the discussion too. The article implicitly idealised the development of the symphony in terms of a concerted effort to realise an implicit beautiful, perfect, Platonic symphonic (four-movement) form, which became fully-formed some time in the eighteenth century thanks to Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven. But "symphonic form" as presented here is an analytical convenience that was abstracted from extant works by later theoreticians.
The article was full of composers implicitly or explicitly "setting new standards". But when composers wrote symphonies, they didn't enter some form of competition to "develop the form" or "set standards". Each symphony can be taken on its own terms rather than being measured by its predecessors.
There were other generalisations that didn't stand up to scrutiny. For instance, "symphonies grew in length" completely ignores a whole swathe of symphonies including those by Sibelius, and this development (if it was a coherent conscious development) didn't "finish with Mahler" (Brian's Gothic?).
I removed much of the etymological discussion: I retained some as helpful background, but most of it was completely off-topic for this article. Perhaps the word itself is notable enough to warrant an article? Or does this content have a place at wikt:symphony? -- RobertG ♬ talk 13:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Maybe there's room to discuss this. It's not unusual for symphonies to include a set of variations for one of the movements - although not usually the 1st or last movements. Exceptions would include Karl Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony (1st movement) and Brahms's 4th symphony (last movement). -- JackofOz ( talk) 21:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
I notice that editor Redheylin has removed the category "Musical forms" from this article (as well as a number of others). May I ask the reasoning here?— Jerome Kohl ( talk) 00:37, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Essentially, the Symphony is a Sonata for orchestra. There are works that are symphonies that are not exactly for orchestra. The Symphony is marked by a continuous progression of growth. The symphony develops and every part of it is an aspect of the dynamic of the work's growth. Pieces which are not so completely thought out are not necessarily real symphonies.
Gingermint (
talk)
06:35, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi. The ABC Classic FM radio station is currently running a Classic 100 Symphony poll (closes end of June 2009). I thought it might be of interest to those visiting this page (both to vote, and to perhaps incorporate the results into the article). Note that ABC Classic FM is a government-run, non-commercial, not-for-profit organisation. I have no affiliation with the radio station or poll in any way. Enjoy. HWV258 01:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Sorry I missed your parenthetical aside, qualified by perhaps. In any case, I don't think the result of this apparently unscientific poll need be mentioned in the article. TheScotch ( talk) 08:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
The broadcasting of the countdown is happening as I type: Classic 100 Symphony (ABC). You can follow via streaming here. HWV258 05:03, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Re: "Many symphonies are tonal works in four movements with the first in sonata form, and this is often described by music theorists as the structure of a "classical" symphony, although many symphonies by the acknowledged classical masters of the form, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, do not conform to this model.":
This sounds to me like a strawman argument. I've never heard a single "music theorist" stipulate that a symphony need have four movements, and removing this artificial delimitation--which has nothing whatsoever to do with structure, the cited exceptions disappear. A much more robust definition would be: A symphony is a piece for orchestra, the first movement of which is in sonata form or some analogue of sonata form.
Re: "A symphony is a musical composition, often extended and usually for orchestra.":
If we're going to quibble that all pieces with symphony in their title are not necessarily for orchestra (Stravinsky's "A symphony of Psalms" for example) or that the term was used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance for pieces not strictly orchestral, then we'd might as well allow that it can designate the orchestra itself (symphony as an abbreviation of symphony orchestra). In other words, I find the "usually" here ridiculous. In any case, saying "a symphony is a musical composition" is saying next to nothing. I don't find it satisfactory merely to eliminate the equivocation either. If a symphony is an "extended" "musical composition" "for orchestra" then "La Mer" is one. TheScotch ( talk) 08:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
HWV, I hope you don't mind my edits: seemed simpler than to paste another copy here. "Although" doesn't work to me as a contrastive item: the two statements seem to be perfectly in accord, not in apparent contrast.
Where are these "Baroque" symphonies? Let's be careful with mere naming. We could equally say that sonatas developed in the Baroque (Bach wrote "sonatas" for solo violin and solo cello), but those works bear little or no relation to sonata form as it developed in the Classico-Romantic period.
"Slow" and "fast" are not forms; a slow movement could use binary, ternary, or a host of other forms.
I'm going to ask User:Noetica to look at this. He knows the secondary literature better than I do. Tony (talk) 03:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Re: "HWV, I hope you don't mind my edits: seemed simpler than to paste another copy here. "Although" doesn't work to me as a contrastive item: the two statements seem to be perfectly in accord, not in apparent contrast.":
I strongly object to your "edits": I can't tell what was there originally. In any case, the problem with the "although" is simply that in this version Classical and Romantic are lumped together. Sonata form is of course an invention of the Classical period, and it was retained more or less as the first movement form for symphonies, concertos, string quartets (and so on) throughout the Romantic period. TheScotch ( talk) 08:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
There are any number of compositions which are symphonies which are not titled such by their composers. There are many works with the title "Symphony" which are really no such thing at all. I've fixed the opening, and made it logical yet vague enough to make most people happy. Also, I cleaned up the writing just a little bit so it didn't sound so clunky. In truth, most symphonies are for orchestra and all symphonies are sonatas and they are all works of continuous growth, of continuous development. The fact that there are works called symphonies which are not and there are symphonies which are not called symphonies should not distract us.
Oh, and really this whole thing needs to be re-written. Some good facts here and there but the style is haphazard. I'm right in that, right? Gingermint ( talk) 06:42, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Some composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich, ... continued to write in the traditional four-movement form, while other composers took different approaches: Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 7, his last, is in one movement..."
Shostakovich's second symphony already was in one movement, too. Of his 15 Synphonies, only six (No. 1, 5, 10, 11, 12, and 15) follow the "traditional form". Actually, Sibelius's symphonic oeuvre is altogether more traditional than Shostakovich's, who started with "different approaches" from his second symphony on. (Which is to be expected, since he was 40 years older...) --
80.187.101.117 (
talk)
01:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Anyone thats reading this i am doing this for homework and i need help to breifly describe what a symphony is but it can only go as far as bathovens symphonies please help me or post a comment that would be great thanks —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.131.38.68 (
talk)
18:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
i just moved the in text citations from whatever they were (old-style mla? incorrect harvard?) to the note-reference style. I would have asked if anyone wants me to move this page to the list-defined references, except the page seems to be cited in MLA instead of APA, so if I converted citation formats _properly_, most page number information would be lost. Is there a precedent or rule describing what to do with MLA citations? in the future someone should probably switch reference styles to APA, to be more in line with the wiki tools. romnempire ( talk) 17:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
as i said in my edit on 11:45, 17 March 2011, I believe the citations on this page should be moved to a standardized format involving hyperlinks, because the content of this specific page references works in parentheses that are not citations, creating confusion for the reader and a look of dissaray for the article. As well, non-hyperlinked in text citations are difficult to edit, because they are easy to miss. Thirdly, the above reason, ability to use more powerful wiki-tools without clashing with preexisting standards, makes me believe this page should be moved to note-reference citations. Since I was already willing to put in the effort to do this work, so no extra effort needs to be expended upon it. If no objections are brought up, i will re-revert Jerome Kohl's reversion of my edit. romnempire ( talk) 09:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Why and where does this article need additional citations for verification? What references does it need and how should they be added? Hyacinth ( talk) 02:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
The "more footnotes" tag is back again. How many more does it need, and where does it need them? Antandrus (talk) 03:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
There are several Greek words used in the article, presented in Greek letters with no western alphabet equivalent offered even parenthetically. Is that really appropriate style in an English encyclopedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.149.74.143 ( talk) 21:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
That the first movement (allegro) of the classical symphony is most often in sonata form is mentioned but not in the right place. Nothing is said of the musical form of the other movements
(e.g. second movement (andante) is most often in binary form) at all. In my opinion this should be dealt with in an article called "Symphony". Contact
Basemetal
here
06:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Starting this section from scratch in order to keep to a little more focus and better explain what I think would be desirable. If you happen to have access to good sources, for exmple New Grove, I'd be surprised if they had nothing regarding this. If I had access to such sources I'd improve the article myself but I can only make these suggestions and hope that people with access to good sources will take them into account.
To repeat myself: this is an article which purports to describe the classical symphony yet nothing, or close to nothing is said of the musical forms of the various movements.
Saying something of the musical forms of the various movements could be saying (things like) mvt 1 usually fast in sonata form, mvt 2 often slow often in ternary form or in variation form or in sonata form, mvt 3 usually a minuet or scherzo in their own peculiar forms, mvt 4 finale is usually fast in rondo or sonata rondo form or whatever. But of course with more details and with examples of the practice found in a number of important examples both interesting in themselves and showing what variability can be expected. It doesn't matter if the examples above are incorrect or incomplete. They're just meant as examples. I'm not writing the article. This is a talk page. I'm just trying to give an idea of what I mean.
Finally regarding the potential expected argument that the forms are just too varied to give a "typical" description. Of course any competent treatment would deal with broad tendencies, not attempt absolute dogmatic statements. Just because you can't be comprehensive doesn't mean you can't contribute more than what we've got at the moment. As of now the reader can learn nothing about this question. Anything at all would be better than what is there at the moment.
Contact Basemetal here 10:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Um, I hope it's ok if I do a bit of (what I hope will be) TLC on this article? It has a lot of emphasis on really marginal stuff (like piano symphonies), yet fails to cover (e.g.) the symphonies of Brahms! I would like to put forth a really basic Music 101 presentation, covering the highlights of composers and repertoire and trimming back stuff that doesn't really belong in a broad-topic article like this one. Please yell at me if you object. :=) Opus33 ( talk) 17:53, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Could I bring up another topic? It concerns the current formatting of references, which seems to me rather unusual in the WP context. I'm basically fine with the Harvard system of referencing, but I feel things are different when the references are themselves links. A Harvard reference is meant to be a small, straightforward thing that the reader's eyes normally will just quickly pass over. But, when we put a link into WP article text, this generally means that it is important material that the reader may well want to click on (this is why in many cases thoughtful editors trim back "overlinking"). My intuitive impression when I read the Symphony article is that the references are attracting too much notice, as if I were supposed to click on all of them. Would it be ok for me to put them all in footnotes? Thank you. Opus33 ( talk) 19:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Dear Saxophilist, I think at present you are outnumbered by "mainstream" editors who would like this article to emphasize standard core material on symphonies (see discussion above). I'm sorry to revert your contributions, but I think we ought to have a symphony article that expresses standard emphases and views.
I think the material you are adding is very useful but you should put it in a satellite article, Symphonies for concert band, and link that from the main Symphony article.
Yours sincerely, Opus33 ( talk) 17:18, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
Jerome, I understand your point, and it's a very good point indeed. However, I would say that a significant amount of symphonies being composed for an ensemble other than the orchestra is an important development in the symphony form. Do you disagree? And I feel that mentioning some examples of this ensemble is worthwhile to the article. Saxophilist ( talk) 07:06, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Bananasoldier ( talk) 04:55, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
I like the article formatted with inline citations (linked to a Notes section), because this lists the works cited in the article directly above the Sources section, making for much easier reference compared to having to scroll up and down, back and forth, from the article's body to the sources section. I had performed this before, but it was reverted per WP:CITEVAR. Since the citations have been reinstated (by other editor(s)), placing this notice here per WP:CITEVAR to establish consensus for the change. Pinging involved editors: Qwertyxp2000, Bananasoldier, DutchTreat, Antandrus, Jerome Kohl. NORTH AMERICA 1000 20:37, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
NOTE: Based on the support shown and JK withdrawing opposition, there is consensus to migrate from Havard-style to footnotes. Over a period of time, I will start to make the changes. Thank you all for your input. - DutchTreat ( talk) 13:34, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
The following external links, I propose changing to be easier to navigate:
{{
cite web}}
: line feed character in |title=
at position 21 (
help)With two different variations: (A) terse and (B) verbose. Comments welcome! DutchTreat ( talk) 13:28, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
Somehow we ended up saying that the four-movement symphony was actually introduced into classical music by Haydn and Mozart. Reference sources I consulted indicate this is just plain not true. Ebenezer Prout is cited in support of the claim, but looking at the relevant page it seems that he says no such thing. Another error the article had was that Haydn wrote only three-movement symphonies in the earlier period of his career (Prout doesn't say this either.) I've found new reference sources, hoping to improve things. The picture seems to be that the shift to four movements was gradual, and was not initiated by either Haydn or Mozart. Sorry I'm no good at reference-formatting, please feel free to fix what I did. Opus33 ( talk) 03:20, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Hello. I would recommend that this page expand upon the critical role of Haydn in the development of the symphonic form.
Right now the article says:
This seems bizarre to me: "since the early baroque era" implies there actually were symphonies in the early baroque era! I propose that the sentence should simply begin "His Symphony No. 9 takes the unprecedented step of including parts for vocal soloists ...", unless someone objects. Opus33 ( talk) 03:26, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
From my research the musicologist, NYU professor, Jan LaRue (1918-2004) spelled his name using mixed case. Using the US LOC Authority Control file, mixed case is the preferred spelling of his family name: VIAF 34920290. It is fair to say that a few international libraries use the lowercase spelling, but not the majority. This claim is supported by several other sources including his obituary from the New York Sun and NYU (which oddly used lowercase 'r' only in the title of their article):
Jan LaRue, a musicologist and emeritus professor of music at New York University, died on Sunday, October 17, in Rye, New York, succumbing to pneumonia and complications arising from a stroke suffered in January 2003, said his wife, Marian Green LaRue. He was 86.
Jan LaRue, an expert on 18th-century music and an emeritus professor at New York University who compiled a colossal database of nearly 17,000 symphonic themes, died Sunday, the university announced.
Comments welcome before I make the changes for consistency. - DutchTreat ( talk) 00:25, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Does anyone have a copy of The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven by Antony Hopkins (1981) OCLC 715201150? I am trying to decode this statement in the article: "the scoring used in Beethoven's symphonies numbered 1, 2, 4, 7, and 8 (instrumentation of Beethoven symphonies taken from the chapter headings for each symphony in Hopkins (1981)" From looking at an on-line snippets, I believe Symphony No. 1 is Chapter 2; Symphony No. 2 is Chapter 4 on page 36; and Symphony No. 4, Chapter 7. I would some help finding the page numbers and possibly a better way of expressing the source for the instrumentation. Thank you! - DutchTreat ( talk) 10:40, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
Not denying Mahler his right to call his Eighth a symphony, but surely the main illustration here is not a particularly representative image of the performance of a symphony. Is there a better photo for the lead? 83.209.254.55 ( talk) 19:52, 17 June 2024 (UTC)