Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What is the key of Bruckner's seventh symphony?
Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major (WAB 107) is one of his best-known symphonies. It was written between 1881 and 1883 and was revised in 1885. It is dedicated to Ludwig II of Bavaria. The premiere, given under Arthur Nikisch and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in the opera house at Leipzig on 30 December 1884, brought Bruckner the greatest success he had known in his life. The symphony is sometimes referred to as the "Lyric", though the appellation is not the composer's own, and is seldom used.
Many (alleged) utterances of Bruckner concerning his Ninth Symphony are only indirectly handed down. Bruckner, fearing that he would not be able to cope with the composition, was supposed to have envisioned his Te Deum as the possible end of the symphony. On the occasion of a visit by the conductor Hans Richter (1843-1916) to Bruckner, this is stated in the third part of volume IV of the Göllerich / Auer biography: "This [Hans Richter] had Bruckner's 'Seventh' for a concert of the Philharmonic and now came to tell him this in Belvedere [Bruckner's last apartment was in the so-called Kustodenstöckl the Belvedere Palace in Vienna]. When Bruckner also told him his grief over the unfinished sentence of the 'Ninth' Richter gave him, as Meissner reports [Anton Meissner was Bruckner's close confidant and secretary], the council, to complete the Symphony instead of a fourth movement with the Te Deum. Master was very grateful for this suggestion, but he looked at it only as a last resort. As soon as he felt reasonably better, he sat down to the piano to work on the Finale. He now seemed to think of a transition to the Te Deum and promised, as Meissner relates, a tremendous effect on the far-reaching main theme, blasted out by the brass choir, and on the familiar and original introductory bars of the Te Deum, as well as on the singers appearing there. He wanted, as he told Meissner several times during audition, as it were, to shake the gates of eternity'."
The symphony is his last composition preceding a nine-month stay in hospital (starting September 1970); it is also his longest symphony. There is one movement, though it divides into a number of smaller sections that follow each other with at most nominal pause but usually none. The notes to the cpo recording identify 17 such sections, partially for analysis.
The Symphony No. 1 in D minor (The Gothic) by Havergal Brian is a symphony composed between 1919 and 1927. At around one and three quarter hours, it is among the longest symphonies ever composed (with Gustav Mahler's 3rd Symphony, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's nine-hour 2nd Organ Symphony and Dimitrie Cuclin's unperformed No. 12) and, along with choral symphonies such as Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Mahler's Eighth Symphony, it is one of a few works attempting to use the musically gigantic to address the spiritual concerns of humanity. With a key-scheme that begins in D minor and eventually closes in E major, the work is an example of progressive tonality.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Gustav Mahler wrote long, large-scale symphonies. His Eighth Symphony, for example, was composed in 1906 and is nicknamed the "Symphony of a Thousand" because of the large number of voices required to perform the work. Additionally, his Third Symphony is one of the longest regularly performed symphonies at around 100 minutes in length for most performances. The 20th century also saw further diversification in the style and content of works that composers labeled "symphonies" (Anon. 2008). Some composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Carl Nielsen, continued to write in the traditional four-movement form, while other composers took different approaches: Jean Sibelius' "Symphony No. 7", his last, is in one movement, whereas Alan Hovhaness's Symphony No. 9, "Saint Vartan"—originally op. 80, changed to op. 180—composed in 1949–50, is in twenty-four.
Sedlatzek's early years in Vienna culminated in the premier of Beethoven's 9th Symphony on 7 May 1824 at Karntnertortheater, where Sedlatzek served as principal flautist. Certain passages of Beethoven's score required the use of the particular Viennese flute which Sedlatzek was known to play with exceptional virtuosity. Only the Viennese flute was capable of playing as low as G, which was required for the proper interpretation of Beethoven's symphony.
By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken during 1828–31 with Christian Gottlieb Müller. In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven's 7th Symphony and then, in March, the same composer's 9th Symphony (both at the Gewandhaus). Beethoven became a major inspiration, and Wagner wrote a piano transcription of the 9th Symphony. He was also greatly impressed by a performance of Mozart's "Requiem." Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures date from this period.
There are 106 symphonies by the classical composer Joseph Haydn (1732–1809). Of these, 104 have numbers associated with them which were originally assigned by Eusebius Mandyczewski in 1908 in the chronological order that was known at the time. In the subsequent decades, numerous inaccuracies in the chronology (especially in the lower numbers) were found, but the Mandyczewski numbers were so widely used that when Anthony van Hoboken compiled his catalogue of Haydn's works, he incorporated the Mandyczewski number into Catalogue I (e.g., Symphony No. 34 is listed as Hob. I/34). Also in that time period, two additional symphonies were discovered (which were assigned non-Mandyczewskian letters "A" and "B"), bringing the total to 106.Hoboken also includes four other works in his "Symphony" category (Hob. I):
The Symphony No. 3 by Gustav Mahler was written in 1896, or possibly only completed in that year, but composed between 1893 and 1896. It is his longest piece and is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire, with a typical performance lasting around 90 to 105 minutes. It was voted one of the ten greatest symphonies of all time in a survey of conductors carried out by the "BBC Music Magazine".
Another composer to rework material from "Tristan" was Emmanuel Chabrier in his humorous "Souvenirs de Munich – quadrilles on themes from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde". These were augmented and orchestrated by Markus Lehmann in 1988. Leopold Stokowski made a series of purely orchestral "Symphonic Syntheses" of Wagner's operas during his time as conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, bringing to concert audiences of the 1920s and '30s music they might not otherwise have heard. He made a 'long version' of music from "Tristan and Isolde" which consisted mainly of the act 1 prelude, the from act 2 and the from act 3. A shorter version of music from the 2nd and 3rd acts was called "Love Music from "Tristan and Isolde"". He made recordings of both versions on 78s and again on LP.
The Fifth Symphony was premiered on 22 December 1808 at a mammoth concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna consisting entirely of Beethoven premieres, and directed by Beethoven himself on the conductor's podium. The concert lasted for more than four hours. The two symphonies appeared on the programme in reverse order: the Sixth was played first, and the Fifth appeared in the second half. The programme was as follows:
Unlike Western tonality and music theory the universal theory of the Phanariotes does not distinguish between major and minor scales, even if they transcribed Western polyphony into Byzantine neumes, and in fact, the majority of the models of the Byzantine Octoechos, as they are performed in Mediterranean churches by traditional singers, would lose their proper intonation and expression, if they were played on a conventionally tuned piano. Exactly the familiarity with microtonal intervals was an advantage, which made the Chrysanthine or Neobyzantine notation as a medium of transmission more universal than any Western notation system. Among others even Western staff notation and Eastern neume notation had been used for transcriptions of Ottoman classical music, despite their specific traditional background.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, on 10 August 1788. The longest and last symphony that he composed, it is regarded by many critics as among the greatest symphonies in classical music.
Group C
Following Beethoven's death, a number of unpublished works were discovered amongst his papers including the Piano Trio, WoO. 38, the Piano Sonata, WoO. 51, the Rondino, WoO. 25 and this sonata for flute and keyboard. Alexander Thayer noted that when the sonata was discovered, the manuscript was not in Beethoven's handwriting, making attribution to the composer problematic. Keith Anderson, writing in the liner notes to the 2018 Naxos recording of the sonata comments that musicologist Willy Hess argued that Beethoven would not have retained the work in his papers unless he had some personal connection with the composition.
The first and longest movement is a slow movement in rough sonata form. As in his Fifth Symphony, Shostakovich quotes from one of his settings of Pushkin: in the first movement, from the second of his "Op. 91: Four Monologues on Verses by Pushkin for bass and piano" (1952), entitled "What is in My Name?". This theme of personal identity is picked up again in the third and fourth movements.
The Symphony No. 38 in C major, Hoboken I/38, is an early and festive symphony by Joseph Haydn. The symphony was composed some time between 1765 and 1769. Because of the virtuosic oboe parts in the final two movements, it has been suggested that the work's composition may have coincided with the employ of the oboist Vittorino Colombazzo in the fall of 1768. The symphony is popularly called the Echo Symphony, a nickname that, like all other named Haydn symphonies, did not originate with the composer.
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his 32 piano sonatas between 1795 and 1822. Although originally not intended to be a meaningful whole, as a set they compose one of the most important collections of works in the history of music. Hans von Bülow called them "The New Testament" of the piano literature (Johann Sebastian Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" being "The Old Testament").
In a test in 2009, the British violinist Matthew Trusler played his 1711 Stradivarius, said to be worth two million U.S. dollars, and four modern violins made by the Swiss violin-maker . One of Rhonheimer's violins, made with wood that the Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) researcher Francis Schwarze had treated with fungi, received 90 of the 180 votes for the best tone, while the Stradivarius came second with 39 votes. The majority (113) of the listeners misidentified the winning violin as the Stradivarius.
In the course of his life Beethoven composed five sonatas for cello and piano. The Op. 69 was the first he had written since his Op. 5 over a decade earlier. Mark Kaplan writes: "In general, the writing in op. 69 is thinner than in the early cello sonatas ... greater compositional technique allowed Beethoven the possibility of using fewer notes with confidence." The contemporary cellist Steven Isserlis describes it as the first cello sonata in history to give the two instruments equal importance.
There is some confusion with modern players in that a modern Boehm keyed system flute is typically pitched in C. This is due to the added keys that allow one to reach low C, yet when one covers just the six main finger-holes (with thumb key covered) on a modern metal Boehm system flute, (XXX-XXX) the note achieved is D. For many technical reasons, a simple system D wooden flute more closely mirrors a concert C modern Boehm system flute in the pitches achieved in its fingering positions as opposed to a simple system flute pitched in C. Theobald Boehm completely redesigned the flute to more easily access the chromatic scale. The Boehm flute has a cylindrical bore (with a parabolic bore in the head) and uses keys to enable the tone holes to be in the ideal place and to be of the ideal size.
Many (alleged) utterances by Bruckner concerning his Ninth Symphony have only survived indirectly. Bruckner, fearing that he would not be able to complete his composition, was supposed to have envisioned his Te Deum as the possible end of the symphony. When the conductor Hans Richter (1843-1916) visited Bruckner, it is stated in the third part of volume IV of the Göllerich-Auer-biography: "He [Hans Richter] had scheduled Bruckner's 'Seventh' for a concert of the Philharmonic in autumn and now came to the Belvedere [Bruckner's last apartment was in the so-called Kustodenstöckl of the Belvedere Palace in Vienna] to tell it Bruckner. When Bruckner also communicated to him about his misery over the unfinished 4th movement of the 'Ninth', Richter gave him, as Meissner reports [Anton Meissner was Bruckner's close confidant and also secretary], the advice to complete the symphony, instead of a fourth movement with the Te Deum. The Master was very grateful for this suggestion, but he looked at it only as a last resort. As soon as he felt reasonably better, he sat down at the piano to work on the finale. He now seemed to think of a transition to the Te Deum and promised, as Meissner relates, a tremendous effect on the far-reaching main theme, blasted out by the brass choir, and on the familiar and original introductory bars of the Te Deum, as well as on the singers appearing there. He wanted, as he told Meissner a few times during audition, to shake, as it were, to the gates of eternity'."
The Coda once again encompasses a broad range of keys and juxtaposes the primary theme with the main theme from the first movement. A final massive statement of A major asserts itself (bar 397) seemingly out of nowhere, embodying Bruckner's amazing ability to establish the tonic without a doubt and without the kind of preparation one would normally expect. This movement does not, nor was it intended to have the vast impact of the Finale of Bruckner's Symphony No. 5, but it is infinitely more refined than the Finale of his Fourth Symphony. According to Watson, the victorious conclusion of Bruckner's quest for a new and ideal finale form will be celebrated in his Eighth Symphony, but the Sixth Symphony's development is an eminent and profoundly satisfying landmark on that triumphant march.
Other characteristics that are found in Bruckner's symphonies (especially the Sixth) include the extensive treatment of the dominant seventh chord as a German sixth chord in a new key, usage of cadences as a decisive factor in daring modulations, the treatment of organ points as pivotal to the harmony and structure, chains of harmonic sequences, and, most notably, extensive use of rhythmic motives, especially the characteristic Bruckner rhythm, a rhythm consisting of two fourths and three quarter notes, or vice versa. This rhythm dominated most of the Fourth Symphony and was practically nonexistent in the Fifth Symphony, but becomes nothing short of a driving force in the Sixth Symphony; the metric complexities generated by this unique rhythmic grouping are more pronounced in the first movement of the Sixth Symphony than in any of Bruckner's other compositions.
This is the only Bruckner symphony exempt from any revisions by the composer. (The Fifth, Sixth and Seventh represent Bruckner's period of confidence as a composer and, along with the unfinished Ninth, are as a group the symphonies he did not extensively revise.) The Sixth was first published in 1899, a task overseen by former Bruckner pupil Cyrill Hynais. This edition did encompass a few minute changes from Bruckner's original: the repetition of the second half of the Trio in the third movement. The next edition appeared only in 1935, from Robert Haas under "Internationale Bruckner-Gesellschaft" auspices. In 1952 Leopold Nowak, who took over Haas's job, published an edition that was a replicate of Bruckner's 1881 original score. In 1986 the "IBG" issued an “audit” of the efforts of Hynais, Haas and Nowak, and in 1997 it republished the Nowak.