FORM IN MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 437, 7 November 1947, Page 9

FORM IN MUSIC

] THE eleventh of a series of brief articles

by

BESSIE

POLLARD

Mus.

Bac., on "Form in Music.’ These articles are closely related to a series

evenings. Each of our articles is illustrated by a few bars of the mus: of programmes on the same topic now being heard from 2YC on Friday ie under discussion,

11. The Symphony HE source of the Symphony was the operatic Overture. Early 18th Century composers wrote three-movement experimental works in the "Italian" verture manner for concert performance rather than for the theatre. Each particular movement, instead of remaining fugal in style, or

being constructed upon dance-tunes, gtadually evolved into a more congruous structure as it passed through succeeding composers’ hands. The polyphonic stream of melodies merged into the more definite types of positive themes or "subjects" which were ultimately employed as foils to each other in the same movement. If we term Haydn the "father of the symphony," then Johann Stamitz (who pioneered the Mannheim group of composers from about 1745 onwards) might be called its grandfather. He made sweeping melodic and thematic inventions and expansions of style to the form. Mozart and Haydn, particularly, owed him much. To-day, the premiere of a new symphonic work is an eagerly-awaited musical event, but 18th Century composers produced them with amazing ease, almost as part of a day’s \work. Haydn wrote over 100 and about half as many. Both these masters realised the colour potentialitigs of the various instruments, too, so that by Beethoven’s time we find not only the form of the Symphony more or less defined, but the actual art of orchestration acknowledged as a potent and vital adjunct exacting careful attention. Beethoven composed nine symphonies, each one a masterpiece characterised by emotional depth and spiritual exaltation. Their expansive range required a diffusion of interpretative power from both performers and listeners almost unheard of before his time. His colossal Ninth Symphony, with its choral finale, paved the way for future symphonic works osampisoy em the human voice.

In the short space of about 10 years (1875-85) Brahms composed his four symphonies, which are a combination of the outstanding achievement of 18th Century Classicism overlaid with 19th Century Romanticism. His contemporary, the Russian Tchaikovski, wrote six symphonies whose melodious and emotional content have won wide appre‘ciation. Two conspicuous 19th Century French symphonists were Hector Berlioz (Fantastic Symphony), and César Franck (Symphony in D Minor).

v Both these works use a cyclic form, that is, the same theme is reiterated in different movements. Berlioz names his recurring theme idée fixe-in his Fantastic Symphony it represents the "beloved one." The symphonies of the Finnish composer Sibelius amalgamate a characteristi¢ melancholy with a heroic majesty, heightened by what one feels ,is an intensely personal idiom of orchestration. Soviet Russia has a _ vigorous young’ school of national. symphonists headed by such personalities as Miaskovsky, Prokofieff, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Khachaturyan, and Khrennikov. New vistas in British symphonic art were opened by the late 19th Century composers Stanford and Elgar. The traditions they established have been ably carried on by Vaughan Williams, E. J. Moeran, William Walton, Bantock, Bliss, and Arnold Bax. THE SYMPHONY-the 11th of the series FORM ‘IN MUSIC-will be heard from Station 2YC at 9.30 p.m. on Friday, November 14. ’