The Classical Music Book

166

MY SYMPHONIES

WOULD HAVE REACHED

OPUS 100 IF I HAD

WRITTEN THEM DOWN

SYMPHONY NO. 1, THE “SPRING” SYMPHONY (1841),

ROBERT SCHUMANN

A

t the end of the Classical

age, Beethoven’s Ninth

Symphony, with its

revolutionary message, inclusion

of a choir and soloists, and many

narrative musical features, offered a

bold new vision of what a symphony

might be. Yet many other Romantic

composers, such as Chopin and

Wagner, felt that Beethoven had

taken the symphony to such

heights with his Ninth that they

could go no further with developing

its form, and they turned to other

genres instead. This led to a dearth

of symphonic writing until the

second half of the 19th century.

Nonetheless, the symphonies

that were produced by the most

successful Romantic composers

were among the greatest music

written in the 19th century. These

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The Romantic symphony

BEFORE

1824 First performance of

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9

in Vienna.

1838 Schumann “discovers”

Schubert’s “Great” C major

Symphony in Vienna.

AFTER

1876 Premiere of Brahms’s

Symphony No. 1, which

Hans von Bulow dubs

“Beethoven’s Tenth.”

1889 Mahler’s Symphony

No. 1 premieres in Budapest.

It marks the beginning of

a cycle that redefines the

symphony as a form.

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