Symphony

A symphony is a multi-movement work for orchestra, normally in four sections: a sonata-allegro first movement (exposition, development, recapitulation, coda), a slow second, a dance-derived scherzo or minuet third and a fast finale. Performance times range from 20 minutes for a Haydn symphony to over 90 for late Mahler. The orchestra divides into strings (violins, violas, cellos, double basses), woodwinds (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons), brass (horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba) and percussion (timpani plus, increasingly after Berlioz, much more). The historical ensemble grew from roughly 30 players for Haydn to 100-plus for Mahler, Strauss and Shostakovich.

The symphony emerged in the early 18th century from the Italian opera sinfonia (a three-section orchestral introduction). Composers such as Giovanni Battista Sammartini and J.C. Bach detached it from the stage in the 1740s and 1750s. Haydn — credited with more than 100 symphonies and the nickname 'father of the symphony' — and Mozart codified the Classical four-movement plan. Beethoven, in his nine symphonies (1800-1824), turned the form into an explicit philosophical statement, especially with the choral finale of the Ninth. The 19th century then divided into roughly two camps: the absolute-music line of Brahms and Bruckner, and the programmatic, picture-painting tradition of Berlioz, Liszt and Tchaikovsky. Mahler, Sibelius, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Vaughan Williams kept the form central through the 20th century.

In a sonata-form movement, the first job is to register the main themes in the exposition, then track how they get cut up, modulated and recombined in the development. Beethoven introduced the trick of carrying thematic material between movements, and Mahler turned the symphony into a multi-hour psychological narrative. The same printed score can sound radically different under different conductors — comparing Furtwängler, Karajan and Carlos Kleiber on the same Beethoven symphony is one of classical listening's standing pleasures.

If you only hear one, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (1824) — the choral 'Ode to Joy' finale alone is the most quoted music in the Western canon. For the Classical model, Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 (1788). For 20th-century scale, Mahler's Second 'Resurrection' or Shostakovich's Fifth (1937).

At the premiere of the Ninth Symphony in Vienna in 1824, Beethoven was almost entirely deaf; he beat time alongside the actual conductor and only realized the audience was applauding when the contralto soloist physically turned him around to face them. The Japanese end-of-year tradition of mass amateur 'Daiku' Ninth performances dates to the postwar 1940s and is essentially unique to Japan.