Symphony

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For other uses, see Symphony (disambiguation).
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A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, genera
lly scored for orchestra or concert band. A symphony usually contains at least o
ne movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle. Many symphoni
es are tonal works in four movements with the first in sonata form, which is oft
en described by music theorists as the structure of a "classical" symphony, alth
ough many symphonies by the acknowledged classical masters of the form, Joseph H
aydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven do not conform to this m
odel.
Contents [hide]
1 Origins
2 18th century
3 19th century
4 20th and 21st centuries
5 Media
6 See also
7 Sources
8 External links
Origins[edit]
The word symphony is derived from Greek s?f???a (symphonia), meaning "agreement o
r concord of sound", "concert of vocal or instrumental music", from s?f???? (symp
honos), "harmonious" (Oxford English Dictionary). This Greek word was used to de
scribe an instrument mentioned in the Book of Daniel, once believed by scholars
to have been a bagpipethe word was identified, for example, as the root of the na
me of the Italian zampogna (Stainer and Galpin 1914, 14546). However, more recent
scholarly opinion points out that the word in the Book of Daniel is siphonia (f
rom Greek s?f?? siphon, "tube", "pipe"), and concludes that the bagpipe did not
exist at so early a time, though the name of the "zampogna" could still have bee
n derived from this word (Marcuse 1975, 501 & 597). In late Greek and medieval t
heory, the word was used for consonance, as opposed to d?af???a (diaphonia), whi
ch was the word for dissonance (Brown 2001). In the Middle Ages and later, the L
atin form symphonia was used to describe various instruments, especially those c
apable of producing more than one sound simultaneously (Brown 2001). Isidore of
Seville was the first to use the word symphonia as the name of a two-headed drum
, and from c. 1155 to 1377 the French form symphonie was the name of the organis
trum or hurdy-gurdy. In late medieval England, symphony was used in both of thes
e senses, whereas by the 16th century it was equated with the dulcimer. In Germa
n, Symphonie was a generic term for spinets and virginals from the late 16th cen
tury to the 18th century (Marcuse 1975, 501). In the sense of "sounding together
," the word begins to appear in the titles of some works by 16th- and 17th-centu
ry composers including Giovanni Gabrieli's Sacrae symphoniae, and Symphoniae sac
rae, liber secundus, published in 1597 and 1615, respectively; Adriano Banchieri
's Eclesiastiche sinfonie, dette canzoni in aria francese, per sonare, et cantar
e, op. 16, published in 1607; Lodovico Grossi da Viadana's Sinfonie musicali, op
. 18, published in 1610; and Heinrich Schtz's Symphoniae sacrae, op. 6, and Symph
oniarum sacrarum secunda pars, op. 10, published in 1629 and 1647, respectively.
Except for Viadana's collection, which contained purely instrumental and secula
r music, these were all collections of sacred vocal works, some with instrumenta
l accompaniment.[citation needed]
In the 17th century, for most of the Baroque period, the terms symphony and sinf
onia were used for a range of different compositions, including instrumental pie
ces used in operas, sonatas and concertosusually part of a larger work. The opera
sinfonia, or Italian overture had, by the 18th century, a standard structure of
three contrasting movements: fast, slow, fast and dance-like. It is this form t
hat is often considered as the direct forerunner of the orchestral symphony. The
terms "overture", "symphony" and "sinfonia" were widely regarded as interchange
able for much of the 18th century (Larue, Bonds, Walsh, and Wilson 2001).
18th century[edit]
The "Italian" style of symphony, often used as overture and entr'acte in opera h
ouses, became a standard three-movement form: a fast movement, a slow movement,
and another fast movement. Haydn and Mozart, whose early symphonies were in this
form, eventually replaced it with a four-movement form through the addition of
a second middle movement (Prout 1895, 249). The four-movement symphony became do
minant in the latter part of the 18th century and most of the 19th century. This
symphonic form was influenced by Germanic practice, and would come to be associ
ated with the classical style of Haydn and Mozart. "Normative macro-symphonic fo
rm may be defined as the four-movement form, in general, employed in the later s
ymphonies of Haydn and Mozart, and in those of Beethoven" (Jackson 1999, 26).
The normal four-movement form became (Jackson 1999, 26; Stein 1979, 106):
an opening sonata or allegro
a slow movement, such as adagio
a minuet or scherzo with trio
an allegro, rondo, or sonata
Variations on this layout, like changing the order of the middle movements or ad
ding a slow introduction to the first movement, were common. Haydn, Mozart and t
heir contemporaries restricted their use of the four-movement form to orchestral
or multi-instrument chamber music such as quartets, though since Beethoven solo
sonatas are as often written in four as in three movements (Prout 1895, 249).
The composition of early symphonies was centred on Milan, Vienna and Mannheim. T
he Milanese school centred around Giovanni Battista Sammartini and included Anto
nio Brioschi, Ferdinando Galimberti and Giovanni Battista Lampugnani. Early expo
nents of the form in Vienna included Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Wenzel Raimund B
irck and Georg Matthias Monn, while later significant Viennese composers of symp
honies included Johann Baptist Wanhal, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf and Leopold
Hoffmann. The Mannheim school included Johann Stamitz.[citation needed]
The most important symphonists of the latter part of the 18th century are Haydn,
who wrote at least 107 symphonies over the course of 36 years (Webster and Fede
r 2001), and Mozart, with at least 47 symphonies in 24 years (Eisen and Sadie 20
01).
19th century[edit]
With the rise of established professional orchestras, the symphony assumed a mor
e prominent place in concert life between approximately 1790 and 1820.[citation
needed]
Beethoven dramatically expanded the symphony. His Symphony No. 3 (the Eroica), h
as a scale and emotional range that sets it apart from earlier works. His Sympho
ny No. 5 is arguably the most famous symphony ever written. His Symphony No. 6 i
s a programmatic work, featuring instrumental imitations of bird calls and a sto
rm, and a convention-defying fifth movement. His Symphony No. 9 takes the unprec
edented step for a symphony of including parts for vocal soloists and choir in t
he last movement, making it a choral symphony (however, Daniel Steibelt had writ
ten a piano concerto with a choral finale four years earlier in 1820).[citation
needed] Hector Berlioz, who coined the term "choral symphony", built on this con
cept in his "dramatic symphony" Romo et Juliette while explaining his intent in t
he five-paragraph introduction in that work's score (Berlioz 1857, 1). Berlioz's
Symphonie fantastique, a work famous for its innovative orchestration (Berlioz
2002, xv) is also a programme work and has both a march and a waltz and five mov
ements instead of the customary four.
By the end of the 19th century, some French organists (e.g., Charles-Marie Widor
and his students Charles Tournemire and Louis Vierne) named some of their organ
compositions symphony: Their instruments (many built by Aristide Cavaill-Coll) a
llowed an orchestral approach (Kaye 2001; Smith 2001; Thomson 2001).