Saturday Symphony (Page 4)

Apologies for missing this feature last week! Last Saturday was a really hectic day that didn’t afford me a real chance to sit down and go Whew! until rather late, at which point I was still facing my daily writing quota, so that’s what happened. But let’s get back into the swing, shall we? Last time I alluded to a major Russian waiting in the wings, and here’s a major Russian, just not the one I was referring to. I’m talking to day about Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, of whose symphonies I wasn’t even aware until just last week. His first symphonyDown the rabbit hole….

Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony (in C minor) is an enormous work, comprising nearly ninety minutes of music. The work is scored for enormous orchestra: The 1887 version requires an instrumentation of three each of the following woodwind: flutes (the third doubling as piccolo), oboes, clarinets, bassoons (the third doubling as contrabassoon) – the triple woodwinds, however, only enter in the Finale (with double woodwind for the earlier movements) – in addition to eight horns, three trumpets, three trombones, a quartet of Wagner tubas, which double as Horns 5–8 in the Finale, and a single contrabass tuba, along with timpani, cymbals, triangle,Down the rabbit hole….

Another work by Anton Bruckner, this time his Symphony No. 7 in E major. After the 4th, the 7th might be the most familiar of Bruckner’s symphonies. It is the most Wagnerian in sound, right down to his use of four Wagner tubas in the Adagio movement. (The Wagner tuba is an instrument specifically designed by Wagner himself, who thought nothing of inventing instruments to achieve the sounds he wanted.) In fact, Bruckner himself indicated that the theme from that movement came to him in a dream after a sudden realization that Wagner was soon to die (which Wagner didDown the rabbit hole….

You know how sometimes you want to listen to a piece of music that is light and airy, that flits around like the will o’ the wisp, that is imbued with bright charm and delicate wit? Well, forget all that, because now we’re meeting Anton Bruckner! Bruckner, in my experience, is one of those “love him or hate him” composers…or maybe that’s not quite fair. Maybe it’s not “hate”, but I’ve definitely encountered listeners for whom Bruckner is amazing, and for whom Bruckner is just someone they don’t really care if they ever hear again. His symphonies are long and,Down the rabbit hole….

A symphony today by an American woman. In the late 19th century, the American musical tradition was pretty much an extension of the European musical tradition, which is generally why American composers of that period aren’t generally held in the highest regard; American concert music was still maturing, and the first real American musical forms — rooted in the emergence of jazz — had yet to fully emerge. But there was still good music being written, and it’s really Eurocentrism that keeps a lot of it from being heard more. A good example is this fine symphony by Amy Beach,Down the rabbit hole….

All right, we got a barn-burner here. Seriously, you’ll be needing good speakers and you’ll be wanting to turn them UP, especially for the last movement. Today it’s the Symphony No. 3 in C minor by Camille Saint-Saens, better known as the “Organ” Symphony. This is one of the great warhorse-works in all classical music, and there’s a reason for that. This symphony is, quite simply, awesome. It’s amazing. With all respect (well, some respect, anyway) to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, this symphony is the musical equivalent of a fireworks show. Maybe not all the way through, obviously — it opens with anDown the rabbit hole….

Antonin Dvorak spent several years in the 1890s in the United States, including a time in a community of Czech immigrants in, of all places, Spillville, Iowa. I once drove through Spillville, and it’s tiny — less than 500 people live there. And yet, one of the greatest composers of all time lived there one summer, and some of his experiences there played into the music he composed while living in our country. Dvorak felt that American music at that time was mainly concerned with echoing the Germanic symphonic traditions, with little attention paid to what he considered the trueDown the rabbit hole….

First off, it’s been brought to my attention that sometimes there are ads on the symphony videos that I use, and that sometimes the ads are not appropriate, over and above their annoying presence to begin with. The problem is that I never see ads, owing to my paid membership on Google Play and Google Drive, which also gives me access to “YouTube Red”, which is YT’s premium service. I’m going to try to alleviate this by using Internet Explorer to search YT for symphony videos. (On IE, I’m not signed into my Google account as a default, so myDown the rabbit hole….

Time for the great Czech master, Antonin Dvorak. Dvorak wrote nine symphonies, of which I’m going to focus on the last three, or at least as far as we know are the last three. The numbering of Dvorak’s symphonies is a rather messy affair: what is commonly thought of as the Ninth was originally published as the Fifth; the symphony up for consideration today was originally published as the Second but is now considered the Seventh. Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony (“From the New World”) is so well-known and frequently performed that it actually tends to overshadow the rest of Dvorak’s symphonic output,Down the rabbit hole….