FHS List A: Nineteenth-Century

Symphony
Dan Grimley
daniel.grimley@music.ox.ac.uk
 Lecture 2. Inventing the German Traditions
• Niels W. Gade: Overture, Efterklange af Ossian, op. 1 (1840)
• Wilhelm Wackenroder, ‘Symphonien’, Phantasien über die Kunst, 1799
Symphonies can represent a bright, varied confused and beautifully developed
drama such as a poet can never provide: ... they depend on no laws of
probability, they need cling to no story and to no character, they remain in their
purely poetic world.
• Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung 22 (1820)
[The symphony expresses] the universality of humanity, in which all the
individual things are melted as single elements into a whole.
• Anon. review of Hesse, Symphony no. 2, AmZ 35 (1833)
The art-works of Beethoven have placed this genre of music on a height above
which it scarcely seems possible to climb.
• Robert Schumann, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 9 July 1839:
When the German speaks of symphonies, he means Beethoven. The two names
for him are one and indivisible—his joy, his pride.
 Leipzig and the Symphony #1
• Death of Beethoven and Schubert
• Repressive political regime (1815-48);
cultural conservatism
• Leipzig’s music-historical legacy (J S
Bach)
• Institutional support (Gewandhaus
concert series founded 1781)
• Publishing Houses (Breitkopf und
Härtel; Edition Peters; C F. Kahnt)
• Creative leadership (Schumann,
Mendelssohn, Niels Gade)
• Political capital
• Educational infrastructure
(Conservatory founded 1843)
 Leipzig and the Symphony #2
• Schumann, review of 1839-40 Gewandhaus season
NZM:
– It is well known that a worthy home for German music has
been secured in the now fifty-years-old Gewandhaus
concerts, and that this institution accomplishes more at
present than it ever did before. With a famous composer at
its head, the orchestra has brought its virtuosity to still
greater perfection during the last few years. It has probably
no German equal in its performance of symphonies, while
among its members many finished masters of several
instruments are to be found.
• Mendelssohn, programme for first concert at
Gewandhaus, 4 October 1835: Calm Sea and
Prosperous Voyage; Beethoven Symphony no. 4
 Schumann’s programme for the Symphony

(After Hepokoski, ‘The Symphony after Beethoven’)

1. Germanic symphony must retain strong, ethical
component; underpinned with moral seriousness and
consistency of national character and not lose itself in
special effects, amusement or divertissement;
2. In the absence of foregrounded problematisation or
transformation in individual works, ‘traditional form’
decayed into insipid formula;
3. Resulting formal shapes needed justification through
strong expressive content, implicit or explicit, which
draw movements together into single conception
 Mendelssohn, ‘Scottish’ Symphony
• Scotland: privileged place in Romantic imagination.
Source of gothic sublime; Walter Scott; ‘Ossian
Ballads’ of James Macpherson.
• Idea from visit to Holyrood Palace, 1829. Letter 30
July (after Friedrich Schiller):
In the depths of twilight we visited today the palace where Queen Mary lived
and loved; there is a little room there, with a spiral staircase near the door;
that’s where they come up and found Rizzio in that room and dragged him out,
and three rooms further on in a dark corner, much grass and ivy are growing
there, and the decrepit altar is where Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland.
It’s all ruined and crumbling now, and the bright sky shines down into it. I
think that there, today, I’ve found the beginning of my Scottish symphony.
 Scottish Symphony: Formal Plan
Mendelssohn: ‘The movements of this symphony must follow one another immediately,
and must not be separated by the customary long pauses. For the listeners, the content
of the movements can be indicated on the concert programme as follows:’

Movement Tempo Key Topic/Character

Intro Andante con moto a minor6—V7 bardic invocation
1 Allegro un poco agitato a minor chivalric adventure
[Coda Andante come I a minor bardic invocation]

2 Vivace non troppo F major Country dance

3 Adagio A major ‘Prayer’/supplication

4 Allegro vivacissimo A minor—V7 Battle cry

Coda Allegro maestoso assai A major! Triumphal march
 Mendelssohn 3: the finale problem
• Greg Vitercik: Unfortunately, the symphony does not dissolve
into the mists. Instead, it closes on a swelling tide of A-major
solemnity, sounding the fatal touch of Victorian profundity that
stalks through so much of Mendelssohn’s later music.
• Peter Mercer-Taylor: Coda modeled on hymn (Festgesang),
‘Vaterland, in deinen Gauen brach der golden Tag einst an’
composed for 1840 Gutenberg celebration:
– Whatever else may be true, Mendelssohn was invoking a style of
composition—a particular Klang that was expressed through not
only parameters of orchestration, range, and general melodic style
but also a recognizable pool of musical gestures. (p. 77)
The Symphony and Museum Culture (Mercer-
Taylor)
What remains [at end of the ‘Scottish’
Symphony] is to dwell on its memory
through the conventional strains of public
celebration. … the establishment of a
‘musical past’ emerges not only as a
possibility but the goal of a new
symphonic teleology. … The goal of the
symphony—that is, both the ‘Scottish’
symphony and the genre as a whole—was
to return to former times, only in a
manner that was conscious of its own
status as retrospection and pointedly
drew attention to this condition. The
symphony was being reconstructed in the
image of an epigonic generation. The
reverent elevation of the past had become
an end in itself. (pp. 81-2)
 Schumann and the Symphony
• Review of Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, NZM July-August
1835:
Form is the vessel of the spirit. Greater spaces require greater spirit to fill
them. The word ‘symphony’ has hitherto designated instrumental music of the
greatest proportions ... It is enough for second-class talents to master the
received forms; those of the first rank are granted the right to enlarge them.
Only the genius may range freely.
• Symphony no. 1 (‘Spring’), sketched in 4 days, 23-6 Jan 1841
• first version of D minor [‘no. 4’] August 1841, premiered in
December; revised 1851, published 1853
• no. 2 in C, 1845-6
• no. 3 ‘Rhenish’ November-December 1850, after move to
Düsseldorf
– 5-movement design: fourth movement inspired by ‘solemn ceremony’
at Cologne cathedral.
 Schumann 3: first movement
Bars Formal Section Key Texture/Affekt
EXPOSITION
1-76 P E♭—V Heroic style/tutti
77-94 TR IV6—g minor Tutti, abating
95-164 S (+ P!) g minor!— B♭ Lyrical/woodwinds
CODA
165-184 EEC (C) B♭
DEVELOPMENT
185 TR, S, C V/c, modulatory Unstable
273 P iv—B major! Stormy—brilliant!
REPRISE
411-56 P I6/4!—V/vi Heroic—but unstable
457-504 S vi—E♭ Lyrical/woodwinds
505 TR V/I Expectant
CODA
527-85 ESC (P) I Triumphant
 Conclusions
• Symphony explicitly national project
• Interconnected with models of cultural regeneration
• ‘Invention of tradition’ (Hobsbawm); ‘Imagined
communities’ (Anderson)
• Boundary between absolute/programmatic often
permeable
• Supported by complex infrastructure
• Formally innovative—culturally conservative?
• Musical discourse which foresees its own end?