symphony (redirected from symphonic)

symphony [Gr.,=sounding together], a sonata for orchestra.

The Italian operatic overture, called sinfonia, was standardized by Alessandro Scarlatti at the end of the 17th cent. into three sections, the first and last being fast and the middle one slower in tempo. Since these sinfonie had little musical connection with the operas they preceded, they could be played alone in concert. It became customary in the early 18th cent. to write independent orchestral pieces in the same style, which were the first real symphonies.

G. B. Sammartini wrote a number of works that influenced and partially defined symphonic form and style. Johann Stamitz, who was leader of the Mannheim group of composers, was one of the first to add a second lyrical theme in the first movement and to expand the symphony's three movements to four. Other important contributions to the development of the symphony were made by C. P. E. Bach, Johann Christian Bach, C. H. Graun, and F. J. Gossec.

It was Haydn and Mozart, however, who synthesized the techniques of all preceding schools into the Viennese classical symphony. This composition consisted of four movements—the first, a fast sonata-form movement; the second, a slow movement; the third, a dance, usually a minuet; and the fourth, a fast finale, usually a rondo and frequently a combination of sonata form and rondo. Beethoven expanded the dimensions of this form and intensified the element of personal expression far beyond the styles of Haydn and Mozart. He also initiated the use of a chorus in the symphony.

After Beethoven the classical ideal was continued in the symphonies of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann, although the classical elements are often overshadowed by romantic traits—repetition in place of actual thematic development, profusion of themes rather than severely limited thematic material, and concern for mood and atmosphere in orchestral color and tone painting. Mainly through the device of thematic transformation, Berlioz adapted the symphonic style and form to program music in his Symphonie fantastique, a procedure that was transformed by Liszt into the symphonic poem and brought to its height by Richard Strauss.

Reacting strongly to the romantic orchestral style, Brahms revived the classical model as defined by Beethoven. Although his harmony, melodic formulas, and use of orchestral color are romantic, Brahms's formal designs and developmental procedures carry on and elaborate on the classical style. Bruckner combined classical formal outlines with the chromatic harmonies and extended melodic structures of the Wagnerian style, and his symphonies influenced those of Mahler in their huge orchestral dimensions. Other important romantic symphonists were Dvořák and Tchaikovsky in the 19th cent. and Sibelius in the 20th cent.

The symphony has been treated with unprecedented freedom by contemporary composers, as illustrated by Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, Bloch's Israel, which includes voices, Webern's Symphony for nine solo instruments, Hindemith's Symphony for Concert Band, and Roy Harris's Folksong Symphony and Symphony for Voices. Other important American symphonists are Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Henry Cowell, Randall Thompson, and Howard Hanson.

Bibliography

See R. Simpson, ed., The Symphony (2 vol., 1972); D. F. Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis: Symphonies (1935, repr. 1972); R. Nadeau, The Symphony (rev. ed. 1974); H. Chappell, Sounds Magnificent (1986).

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symphony

Long musical composition for orchestra, usually in several movements. The term (meaning “sounding together”) came to be the standard name for instrumental episodes, and especially overtures, in early Italian opera. The late-17th-century Neapolitan opera overture, or sinfonia, as established especially by Alessandro Scarlatti c. 1780, had three movements, their tempos being fast-slow-fast. Soon such overtures began to be performed by themselves in concert settings, like another forerunner of the symphony, the concerto grosso. The two merged in the early 18th century in the symphonies of Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1700/01–75). In c. 1750 German and Viennese composers began to add a minuet movement. Joseph Haydn, the “father of the symphony,” wrote more than 100 symphonies of remarkable originality, intensity, and brilliance in the years 1755–95; since Haydn, the symphony has been regarded as the most important orchestral genre. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote about 35 original symphonies. Ludwig van Beethoven's nine symphonies endowed the genre with enormous weight and ambition. Later symphonists include Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvorák, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Gustav Mahler; their 20th-century successors include Ralph Vaughan Williams, Jean Sibelius, Dmitry Shostakovich, and Witold Lutoslawski.

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Symphony

(1) See SymphonyOS and Lotus Symphony.

(2) An earlier wireless LAN family from Proxim, Inc., San Jose, CA (www.proxim.com) that transmitted 1.6 Mbps in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band. Symphony was geared for the home and small office and covered an indoor range up to 150 feet and 10 computers. Symphony supported laptops fitted with Proxim's RangeLAN2 cards, but did not support roaming. See RangeLAN and wireless LAN.

(3) One of the first integrated software packages for the PC. Developed by Lotus, it included word processing, database, spreadsheet, business graphics, communications and a macro language.

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symphony

1. an extended large-scale orchestral composition, usually with several movements, at least one of which is in sonata form. The classical form of the symphony was fixed by Haydn and Mozart, but the innovations of subsequent composers have freed it entirely from classical constraints. It continues to be a vehicle for serious, large-scale orchestral music

2. a piece of instrumental music in up to three very short movements, used as an overture to or interlude in a baroque opera

3. any purely orchestral movement in a vocal work, such as a cantata or oratorio

4. short for symphony orchestra

5. in musical theory, esp of classical Greece

a. another word for consonance Compare diaphony

b. the interval of unison

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(tool, product)

Symphony - Lotus Development's successor to their Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. Unlike 1-2-3, Symphony allowed a limited form of multitasking. The user could switch manually between it and MS-DOS and separate graph and spreadsheet windows could be opened simultaneously and would be updated automatically when cells were changed. In addition, a small word processor could be opened in a third window. These all could be printed out on the same report. Symphony could read and write Lotus 1-2-3 files and had interactive graphical output and a word processor, thus making it effectively a report generator. Unlike 1-2-3, Symphony was not a great commercial success.