Page 168 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

166

IN CONTEXT
MY SYMPHONIES FOCUS

The Romantic symphony
WOULD HAVE REACHED BEFORE

1824 First performance of
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9
OPUS 100 IF I HAD in Vienna.

1838 Schumann “discovers”
WRITTEN THEM DOWN Schubert’s “Great” C major
Symphony in Vienna.

SYMPHONY NO. 1, THE “SPRING” SYMPHONY (1841), AFTER
1876 Premiere of Brahms’s
ROBERT SCHUMANN Symphony No. 1, which
Hans von Bulow dubs
“Beethoven’s Tenth.”
1889 Mahler’s Symphony
No. 1 premieres in Budapest.
It marks the beginning of
a cycle that redefines the
symphony as a form.

t the end of the Classical
age, Beethoven’s Ninth
A Symphony, with its
revolutionary message, inclusion
of a choir and soloists, and many
narrative musical features, offered a
bold new vision of what a symphony
might be. Yet many other Romantic
composers, such as Chopin and
Wagner, felt that Beethoven had
taken the symphony to such
heights with his Ninth that they
could go no further with developing
its form, and they turned to other
genres instead. This led to a dearth
of symphonic writing until the
second half of the 19th century.
Nonetheless, the symphonies
that were produced by the most
successful Romantic composers
were among the greatest music
written in the 19th century. These

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