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A symphony in Classical music is a instrumental composition of generally vast proportions, including/understanding several joined or disjoined movements, and calling upon the resources of the Symphony orchestra.

Coming étymologiquement from the Greek syn , signigiant with and phon , meaning its , the term refers to the consonance sounds. With the Middle Ages, the chifonie (or chifoine ) indicates an instrument, ancestor of the Vielle to wheel. At the beginning of XVIe century, the term extends to the polyphonic works intended for the instruments, then applies to all instrumental compositions in opposition to the vocal Musique.

It is only in the second third of the 18th century, in full period of classicism that the kind is fixed in its current meaning.

Short history of the symphony of orchestra

Its structure is close to the form sonata of which it is the heiress. Set up slowly during the 18th century the form widens thanks to the symphonists of the incipient romantic period (Beethoven). But certain type-setters free themselves from this framework, such Hector Berlioz in its “ Fantastic Symphonie ”.

One should not either forget the role of the sinfonia of opening to Italian (i.e. two sharp movements which frames a slow movement) opera which will mark also its print the birth of this form with success.

The number of movements which constitute the symphony varies, being able to go from one to eight or more, but, in its most traditional form (haydnienne) it is of three or, even more frequently, of four.

Work is interpreted by a Symphony orchestra (one employs also the expression philharmonic orchestra) under the direction of a Leader, appeared as such around 1810/1820. This last is charged to guarantee the rhythmic accuracy, to monitor the sound balance, to control the details, coherence or balances and especially to insufflate a spirit common to hundred instrumentalists.

At the 18th century, the symphony replaces gradually the Concerto grosso, for large the musical units. Before Mozart, it is especially Joseph Haydn which contributed to fix its form, giving him his noble letters. But it is Ludwig van Beethoven which did of it one of the musical forms most prestigious of the traditional repertory , increasing the orchestra until adding a chorus in the finale of its ninth symphony. It was followed by the romantic Compositeur S (Weber, Schubert, Berlioz, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, Tchaikovski…), then post-romantic (Mahler, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams…) and finally modern (Ives, Enesco, Prokofiev, Chostakovitch, Martinu, Milhaud, Tippett, Hartmann…).

If the XIXe century created the symphonic poem which releases many type-setters of the rigid framework of a great form, another takes life with the XXe century: the Concerto for orchestra, defended by Bartók. However, the symphony still remains among the musical forms privileged by a great number of contemporary type-setters by its potentials of renewal and its possibilities protean, for example of bursting of the orchestra: Casing (Symphony of three orchestras) or Dutilleux (Symphony the Double ).

Certain type-setters were excellent orchestrateurs, without to have composed of strictly related orchestral works to the symphony. One thinks for example of Maurice Ravel and Modeste Moussorgsky.

It is sometimes difficult to classify an orchestral work like symphony, so much the kind evolved/moved during the 19th century and of the 20th century.

Beyond the figures

The personal investment of the type-setter is measured with the reduction in the number of made up symphonies during a career: in this field, the quality and the personal character of the inspiration become incompatible with a series production: if Haydn composes 106 symphonies and Johann Melchior Molter 170, Mozart writes of it nothing any more but 55 and Beethoven 9.

However, any comparison by the figures is forced and perhaps even moved. Certain type-setters thus should be quoted, for multiple reasons, having approached only once the kind. Initially impossible to circumvent the Franck, Slipper, Bizet or Dukas and let us add even the Sea brilliant masterpiece of Debussy, which is a symphony without the name. All these capital works for the history of the music and our admiration, mark and nourish undoubtedly more the musical life that ten of Joseph Joachim Raff or the sixty-seven ones of Alan Hovhaness…

And then, it is necessary to draw the attention to some symphonies with (Re) discovering: Cherubini (single symphony of maturity), Arriaga (single symphony of a type-setter died in twenty years), Barber, Ernest Bloch ( Israel ) which will satisfy the curious ones about the contents more than to retain distracting figures of Haydn and other Segerstam.

Evolution of the orchestra

The Symphony orchestra evolved/moved with time. In Haydn and Mozart, the orchestra is composed of flute S, Hautbois, Clarinette S, Basson S by 2, of 2 horn S and, sometimes of 2 trumpet S, drinking cups and cord S. Beethoven added 2 horns, 1 piccolo, 1 Contrebasson and a battery (symphonies 5,6 and 9), in addition to the trombones in symphonies 5,6 and 9.

The toothing-stone appears in the symphonic form with the " Symphony fantastique" of Berlioz in 1830, but it was used sometimes in the orchestra since at least 1810, because it was a very popular instrument (see works of Salieri or Spohr).

Then in a furrow initiated by the music of Wagner, manpower do not cease growing bigger with the orchestra of Schumann, Brahms, then Bruckner, Mahler and their descendants.

Beethoven introduced, in its last symphony (the ninth of 1824), a chorus, the famous Ode with the joy of Schiller, which will become the Hymne of the European Union once arranged and orchestrated by Karajan. Others Compositeur S took again this innovation, such as for example Gustav Mahler in three of its symphonies (numbers 2,3 and 8) or Chostakovitch in its Treizième .

The symphony orchestra can also include a Piano or a Orgue (Camille Saint-Saëns), but generally a Célesta.

Another transformation of the symphony was born with Mahler, it is the vocal symphony, for a soloist or more, on a poetic text. the Song of the ground (compound between 1907 and 1908) mark this attempt (quasi-perfect, one can say it) to amalgamate Lied and symphony, and let us note it, with the service of a pessimism of deepest, like good later extraordinary the Quatorzième of Chostakovitch. The symphonic structure in the Das Lied is respected even for the Scherzo which occupies the fourth and fifth movements. Mahler in the Symphonie n° 4 (1901) had already inaugurated the principle, but in only one movement.

Arthur Honegger, in its Second symphony of 1941, will inflect the disproportion of the orchestration to the service of a new intensity which claims the dramatic context, by using only the cords and a trumpet solo in the choral of the finale where the music finds the light of the hope.

Symphony for organ

Caption ninth

It is after Beethoven that was born the legend from the “Malédiction of the ninth symphony”, which would be fatal to the type-setters. Actually it of it is nothing. Even if Schubert, Dvořák, Bruckner and Mahler, among the largest symphonists of the XIXe century seem to give reason to the myth, the XXe disabled person completely this phantasm of the cursed figure.

All the musicians of scale of XIXe measure themselves with the ell of the Master and none escapes from it. It is thus easier to see there a kind of fascination beethovénienne moving. Other works as the concerto for violin marked the type-setters who confronted themselves with the kind. Brahms and Tchaikovski compose them also one concerto… in major D, like their elder.

Beethoven, even beyond the XIXe century, étreint each type-setter who must fight to hope to cross beyond musical so far pushed back and with force by Ludwig van… Beethoven is a figure at the same time human and inhuman of the musician, it is in that the legend fed around the symphony.

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