Symphonic Suite or Symphony in disguise?

[albion]

It is frequently asserted that Tchaikovsky wrote suites and called them symphonies - usually such a statement is couched as an accusatory and derogatory criticism - a pompous attitude I would say. There are many instances where the dividing line between suite and symphony is decidedly blurry - especially so when a composer chooses the term 'Symphonic Suite'. Usually, but not always, given extra-musical associations these works can seem in something of a state of limbo, neither tone-poem nor absolute symphony.

Any number of symphonies governed by external pictorialism might potentially also be regarded as suites, including Beethoven's Pastoral and Raff's Im Walde and Lenore. Sometimes, categorisation seems to indicate considerable indecision on the part of the composer himself - Holbrooke's Les Hommages, Op.40 (1906) is variously styled 'Symphony No.1' or 'Suite for Grand Orchestra' depending on which source you consult. Is it a spurious distinction?

Two composers who each wrote a pair of four-movement symphonic works but chose not to term them symphonies were Edward German and George Chadwick. German was so traumatised by Shaw's caustic dismissal of his Norwich Symphony (No.2, 1893) that he vowed never to use the term again and, as a result, what might be properly regarded as his 3rd and 4th Symphonies (namely the Leeds Symphonic Suite of 1895 and the Symphonic Suite The Seasons of 1899) are denied the kudos which the term 'symphony' undoubtedly lends. The appellations given to Chadwick's Symphonic Sketches (1895-1905) and Suite symphonique (1910) were not born out of criticism of his previous symphonies, but these, too, can perhaps be regarded as surrogate symphonies.

What other examples are there of (unsung) composers who, perhaps, fought shy of designating their more ambitious efforts 'symphonies' and instead chose what could be viewed as more audience-friendly and critic-proof terminology? 

[JimL]

Well, an obvious sung example would be Rimsky-Korsakov's Symphonic Suite Antar, which was at one point his Symphony 2.  It's gradually becoming more unsung, even if the composer isn't.

[Pengelli]

Bax's 'Spring Fire' has been referred to as a 'freely worked symphony',or a symphony in all but name. Also,one Musicweb critic has suggested that that Bax's symphonic canon should be re-numbered,Dvorak style, with 'Spring Fire' placed as No1.
Why such a gorgeously orchestrated & tightly constructed,(for Bax) orchestral work can't be as popular and as widely performed as comparable works by Debussy or Ravel is hard to understand.
But as Kurt Vonnegut used to say,'so it goes'.

[TerraEpon]

Speaking of Debussy, I've seen La Mer characterized as a symphony in all but name.

[Alan Howe]

I think La Mer is a symphony - its subtitle, after all, is "Three Symphonic Sketches".

[alberto]

Maybe Poème des rivages by d'Indy?

[albion]

Another work which might be considered a symphony manque is Ethel Smyth's superb four-movement Symphonic Serenade in D (1890) - although the marked absence of a slow movement really prevents it's transfer to 'symphony in disguise' status.

Nevertheless, it's a really wonderful Brahmsian piece which springs to life in the 1996 Chandos recording conducted by Odaline de la Martinez. 

[eschiss1]

there's quite a few unchallenged symphonies whose closest stabs at 'slow movements' are allegrettos, if that, though... oh well. (I will not say Beethoven 7. I will not say Beethoven 7. you just did. hush!!!!) (there are better examples, of course, since practically everyone hears the Allegretto of the Beethoven 7th as a Larghissimo molto con espressione dolore, più e più largo, or as the last page of Mahler's 9th. )

[Delicious Manager]

Many have attested to Rakhmaninov's Symphonic Dances being his Fourth Symphony in all but name.

Interestingly, Mahler didn't call his First Symphony a symphony in its first five-movement version, but TITAN - eine Tondichtung in Symphonieform (TITAN - A tonepoem in the form of a symphony).

[Jonathan]

How about Saint-saens Le Foi, Op.130?  It's described as "Trois Tableaux symphoniques" and is well worth a listen.

Actually, for that matter, Liszt's Faust Symphony in 3 character portrayals...

[Mark Thomas]

Philip Scharwenka's Dramatic Fantasy is a very impressive three movement "symphony in disguise", well worth looking out.

[Hovite]

The appellations given to Chadwick's Symphonic Sketches (1895-1905) and Suite symphonique (1910)

I don't think that I've heard the Suite symphonique, but I certainly consider the Symphonic Sketches to be a symphony sailing under a false flag.

Likewise, Antar is, for me, a symphony, not a suite, and maybe Sheherazade also. A true suite is the sort of collection of unrelated movements that Massenet specialized in. His suites are very nice, but they are clearly not symphonies.

[chill319]

A number of later 19th-century composers wrote both symphonies and suites (and I'm inclined to class serenades with suites for this period). Surely they knew the difference. One has only to listen to the wonderful CPO recording of Draeseke's Symphony 2 and Serenade to hear what that difference is. Both works are immensely attractive, but the sunny symphony (which lacks a true slow movement) has a really exceptional working-out section in its first movement and a last movement worthy of late Haydn. All in all, the subtleties of its discourse require considerable concentration. The serenade is notably more relaxed. I believe a similar contrast can be found in Rimsky's Symphony 3 and Antar, in Dvorak's New World and American Suite, etc. While the quality and appeal of the music is outstanding in the suites, there simply isn't the same concentration of musical argument in the working-out sections. (Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, on the other hand, has some of his finest developmental work.)

In the case of American composers publishing in the wake of Tchaikovsky 5/6 and Dvorak 9, I'm inclined to believe that their reluctance to call works symphonies is closely related to Brahms's reluctance to call his opuses 11 and 16 symphonies.

[eschiss1]

Cedric Thorpe-Davie, in a brief book on musical design republished by Dover which I have been reading - with at first minimal understanding - for years, did hit the nail on the head about the finale of the Dvorak 9th - that Dvorak seemed to have mistaken the function of a development section to be that of parading themes in different keys rather than using themes, or theme fragments (whether they had appeared before or not, was irrelevant) to dramatically go from the key in which the exposition had ended to return to the main key of the work. (I paraphrase, badly.) Schoenberg (in the book Structural Functions of Harmony, I think - I only have this in translation, which is as well since my German is none so good) rejected the term development section in favor of (in German) "durchführung", working-through, more or less, iirc (and provided some interesting analyses of successful ones.

[chill319]

Old Cedric's opinion was certainly widely held by academics (like Rimsky-Korsakov) during the late 19th-century. It seems to me that composers of the time recognized two stages of challenge in constructing their durchführungen. First, how to write the long melodic lines that characterize music of that period while also deploying the "tricks of the trade" -- breaking tunes down in to motives, hooking those motives together into larger musical patterns that are not _just_ sequences, modulating to remote keys, and the like. Second, how to actually "say" something while doing all this -- in short, to produce art and not mere craft.

Rimsky certainly relabeled Antar based on criteria similar to Cedric's. Dvorak, who showed in Symphony 7 that he could develop an idea as well as anyone (and I do mean anyone) had in the New World a bit of a comedown in terms of craftsmanship. But the materials are so compelling, I think the result was still intimidating for other composers.