not a symphony

[calimac]

Now I really have to decide how many symphonies I have recordings of, because this month's BBC Magazine recording is of two Organ Symphonies by the French composers Charles-Marie Widor and Louis Vierne. Rather liked the Widor, not so hot on the Vierne. I don't think I'll count them. Although I'm generally of the view that, at least after 1800, a symphony is whatever a composer chooses to call one, and not required to meet certain internal characteristics, I do think that, for my purposes at least, it has to be a work for an instrumental ensemble. And one organist, with two assistants pulling the stops, doesn't count. You are free to organize your collections differently.

Comments

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Ha! I think I beat you to posting by mere seconds, as I saw mine appear by itself and only saw yours after I got the email notice and then refreshed the page. At least I had the grace to hide it behind a link so readers would be sufficiently warned not to click through while eating.

Debussy was, if memory serves, working in Russia at the time, and wasn't it long the tradition in that country for a symphony to be written in draft for piano, and only later orchestrated? The work is sufficiently trivial that we aren't missing much by not having a fleshed-out version of the one movement he wrote. I did, however, once chide K-Mozart (z''l) for airing a single movement from "La mer," and got the response that "it's the closest thing to a symphony that Debussy ever wrote" (leaving open the issue of a classical radio station playing individual movements of symphonies and concerti), to which I responded with a reference to this work. I know Los Hermanos Kontarsky recorded it, but who else?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Russia need have nothing to do with it. Many composers customarily write out in piano score before orchestrating, especially if as performers they're primarily pianists, which Debussy was. Berlioz didn't, of course, but then Berlioz was unusual in not really playing the piano at all.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Yes, but my conscience is clear because I wrote it before seeing your post.

I'm not sure who, besides the Kontarskys. Some doof somewhere orchestrated it, I seem to recall. There's always somebody waiting to use what they learned in school.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

This doof.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I'd swear when I heard it before that whoever did it was at least willing to put his name on it, but further searching hasn't turned that up. Well, that's Amazon. The concept of putting more than two names on an album really seems to throw them for a loop.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The orchestrator's name is on it. It's the conductor. I should have specified this; sorry.