I've just heard on the Radio 3 3 Breakfast programme, that goes out every week day morning, that the presenters want to know what everyone's top 9 symphonies are. I think this could be a golden opportunity for us to push our own favourite unsung symphonic works. It would be a great shame if they just got inundated with the usual warhorses from "ignorant" listeners.
I think we need to go to 3breakfast@bbc.co.uk to cast our votes.
Quote from: John H White on Wednesday 02 November 2011, 09:37
I've just heard on the Radio 3 3 Breakfast programme, that goes out every week day morning, that the presenters want to know what everyone's top 9 symphonies are.
More specifically, you have to match each of nine numbered symphonies to your favourite example by a particular composer.
My list
might look something like this -
1st Symphony - Frederic Cliffe
2nd Symphony - Arnold Bax
3rd Symphony - Richard Arnell
4th Symphony - Malcolm Arnold
5th Symphony - Hubert Parry
6th Symphony - Edmund Rubbra
7th Symphony - Ralph Vaughan Williams
8th Symphony - Havergal Brian
9th Symphony - Robert Simpson
:)
Whilst I take your point about pushing our "unsungs", which is fine, :) forgive me if I use this as an opportunity to reiterate my dislike of these polls.
In Australia, they're really just a marketing exercise, in my view, and serve no cultural purpose. If the same applies in the UK, then a handful of votes for obscure composers will just be ignored, and the poll will give the BBC an excuse to market a CD set of excerpts from "Your Favourite Symphonies" ... Beethoven 5, Mozart 40, Tchaik 5, or similar. Yuk!! ::)
I'm afraid that I'm with Semloh in the "Bah, humbug!" camp.
Me too. Sorry. It'll make no difference at all, I'm afraid. Cynical, moi?
Quote from: Albion on Wednesday 02 November 2011, 10:50My list might look something like this -
1st Symphony - Frederic Cliffe
2nd Symphony - Arnold Bax
3rd Symphony - Richard Arnell
4th Symphony - Malcolm Arnold
5th Symphony - Hubert Parry
6th Symphony - Edmund Rubbra
7th Symphony - Ralph Vaughan Williams
8th Symphony - Havergal Brian
9th Symphony - Robert Simpson
:)
But I completely agree that contacting the BBC with any such suggestions would be an exercise in futility. Now that they've started encouraging listeners to ring in with maudlin, tedious or plain bizarre tales about why they want to hear a particular piece of music (did anybody happen to catch the interminable saga of the ham-sandwich-in-the-programme about a week ago) I've actively begun praying for the axe to fall and put the station out of it's misery.
::)
The results will look like this:
1) Brahms 1
2) Brahms 2
3) Beethoven 3
4) Brahms 4
5) Beethoven 5
6) Tchaikovsky 6
7) Beethoven 7
8) Beethoven 8
9) Beethoven 9, with Dvorak 9 a contender.
30 years ago when our classical FM station moved to a new frequency with a new transmitter they did something similar and the predictable favorites were played in order finishing with work receiving the most votes. They did the Top Classical 100 -- and #1 was Beethoven 5.
If it were up to me:
1) Kalinnikov 1
2) Elgar 2
3) Bax 3
4) Schmidt 4
5) Raff 5
6) Mahler 6
7) Sibelius 7
8) Glazunov 8 -- had to get him in here somewhere!
9) Vaughan Williams 9
Hrm. Some of my favorite examples are after no.9, though few enough of them that it's a good idea the list only continues to 9. Ok, so this isn't a list of composers such that e.g. you like their 1st symphony better than anyone else's first symphony, but rather you like their, e.g., first symphony better than any other symphony of theirs. Ok, important logical point, there.)
No.1 - Charles Edmund Duncan-Rubbra
No.2 - Nicolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky
No.3 - Roger Huntington Sessions
No.4 - William Havergal Brian
No.5 - Shin-Ichiro Ikebe
No.6 - Mieczysław Weinberg
No.7 - Roy Ellsworth Harris
No.8 - Walter Hamor Piston, Jr.
No.9 - Beethoven
Of course it is a silly exercise ;D
(Interestingly though, the writers in the (London) "Times" came up with
1: Bizet Symphony in C
2: Mahler 2nd
3: Brahms 3rd
4: Nielsen 4th
5: Sibelius 5th
6: Beethoven 6th
7: Shostakovich 7th
8: Bruckner 8th
9: Beethoven 9th
...which isn't a bad list, by and large).
Let me follow Albion though and identify 9 favourite British symphonies-
1. Brian's Gothic (or Kenneth Leighton 1st)
2: Benjamin Frankel 2nd
3: William Alwyn 3rd
4: Edmund Rubbra 4th (or Daniel Jones 4th)
5: Richard Arnell 5th
6: Alun Hoddinott 6th
7: RVW's Antarctica
8: Daniel Jones 8th (or Edmund Rubbra 4th or Havergal Brian 8th)
9: Robert Simpson 9th
Sorry..cop out..I just can't make up my mind ;D
Rubbra's 1st :o
That's very interesting :)
Oh dear, I've boobed!
Here's my amended list that I intend to pass on to the 3 Breakfast presenters in place of what I first sent them:-
Symphony No 1 in E major Hans Rott
Symphony No 2 in D minor Louis Spohr
Symphony No 3 in E flat L. van Beethoven
Symphony No 4 in F major Ferdinand Ries
Symphony No 5 in C minor Franz Lachner
Symphony No 6 in D major Johann Rufinatscher
Symphony No 7 in E major Anton Bruckner
Symphony No 8 in G minor Franz Lachner.
Symphony No 9 in D minor L. van Beethoven
Well, I suppose my top 9 of unsung favourites are not of any interest to the BBC...
1.Raff 1
2.Rubinstein 3
3.Rufinatscha 5
4.Noskowski 1
5.Dietrich
6.Gänsbacher
7.Reinecke 2
8.Cliffe 1
9.Draeseke 3
---------------------------
Please allow me to correct my stupidity.
My new list should be:
1.Raff
2.Bortkiewicz
3.Rubinstein
4.Taneyev
5.Rufinatscha
6.Rufinatscha
7.Atterberg
8.Röntgen
9.Glazunov
Mine'd be (unsungs only):
Dietrich
Berger 2
Draeseke 3
Taneyev 4
Raff 5
Rufinatscha 6
Abert 7
.....er, ah! No idea how to continue. No suggestions, thank you! ???
Quote from: Peter1953 on Wednesday 02 November 2011, 15:42
Well, I suppose my top 9 of unsung favourites are not of any interest to the BBC...
1.Raff 1
2.Rubinstein 3
3.Rufinatscha 5
4.Noskowski 1
5.Dietrich
6.Gänsbacher
7.Reinecke 2
8.Cliffe 1
9.Draeseke 3
... but they might be to a sudoku compiler.
;)
... indeed, level 5 ;D
Not that I have the skills to do so, but I think it would be hilarious if someone waited until the BBC list was complete, hacked their network, and changed the list. Bemused listeners whose idea of adventure is listening to Beethoven's 2nd symphony, would be shocked to find that their peers overwhelmingly seem to prefer, say:
Corigliano 1
Hovhanness 2
Hansen 3
Part 4
Bax 5
Bruckner 6
Sibelius 7
Glass 8
Persichetti 9
Of course, now I need to go listen to #1, 4, 8, and 9 myself...
Kitmills - Gottfred Matthison-Hansen's 3rd organ symphony? I thought he only wrote one...
Oh well, if I must. Sticking both to unsungs and to the BBC's scheme of one No.1, one No.2 etc...
1. Kalinnikov No.1
2. Raff No.2
3. Draeseke No.3 Tragica
4. Raff No.4
5. Stanford No.5 L'Allegro ed il Penseroso
6. Rufinatscha No.6
7. Atterberg No.7 Romantica
8. Glazunov No.8
9. No idea at all!
It's really hard to choose, especially from 1-6 there are plenty of options... Well, i think a possible list would be like this:
1. Rott/Kalinnikov
2. Schmidt/ Peterson-Berger
3. Gliere/ Magnard
4. Nielsen/ Glazunov
5. Raff
6. Myaskovsky
7. Spohr
8. Shostakovich/Bruckner
9. Cuclin (I can't stop listening to it, after i discovered it on this forum)
If i could choose between symphonies without numbers, i would probably pick Kullervo.
My possible list, listing unsungs, and excluding the authors of just one Symphony:
1-Sgambati
2-Martucci
3-Berwald
4-Magnard
5-Parry
6-Atterberg
7-Pettersson
8-Raff
9-Arnold
Quote from: eschiss1 on Thursday 03 November 2011, 05:25
Kitmills - Gottfred Matthison-Hansen's 3rd organ symphony? I thought he only wrote one...
I meant the American Howard Hanson...my mistake in spelling...
No worries, hoped the other might have been recorded (if it existed at all. I only know some other works of his that have been scanned and uploaded to Sibley and to the Danish Royal Library; they seem worthwhile...)
Ah, this is fun:
Symphony No. 1: Urspruch
Symphony No. 2: Raff or Schmidt
Symphony No. 3: Atterberg or Gernsheim
Symphony No. 4: Van Gilse
Symphony No. 5: Gade
Symphony No. 6: Potter
Symphony No. 7: Asger Hamerik
Symphony No. 8: Rautavaara or Raff
Symphony No. 9: Langgaard
Symphony No. 10: Hill
Symphony No. 11: Raff
12 and up is probably all going to be Miaskovski or Haydn.
Absolutely impossible. 8) Sticking to the BBC scheme of 1 til 9, I would think of a row like:
1. Arnold Cooke 1
2. Lennox Berkeley 2
3. Stanley Bate 3
4. Joly Braga Santos 4
5. Camargo Guarnieri 5
6. Eduard Tubin 6
7. Havergal Brian 7
8. Vagn Holmboe 8
9. Ralph Vaughan Williams 9
Alternatively:
1. Kaljo Raid 1 / Brian 1
2. Léon Orthel 2 / Vermeulen 2 / Wordsworth 2 / Alwyn 2 / Barber 2 / Erkin 2 / Gipps 2
3. Joly Braga Santos 3 / Madetoja 3 / Glière 3 / Guarnieri 3
4. Einar Englund 4 / Langgaard 4
5. Carl Nielsen 5 / Shosta 5
6. Ralph Vaughan Williams 6 / Holmboe 6 / Martinů 6
7. Malcolm Arnold 7 / Mahler 7
8. Havergal Brian 8 / Shosta 8
9. Robert Simpson 9 / Holmboe 9
10. Edmund Rubbra 10 / Holmboe 10