2. music
  3. 162013-109363

Favorite Symphonies Quiz

Pick your favorite composer for each symphony. You can’t use a composer more than once.

Here are my answers (at least today’s answers):
Symphony No. 1: Copland
Symphony No. 2: Hanson
Symphony No. 3: Saint-Saëns
Symphony No. 4: Bruckner
Symphony No. 5: Shostakovich
Symphony No. 6: Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 7: Sibelius
Symphony No. 8: Mahler
Symphony No. 9: Beethoven

What are your picks? I’m looking forward to learning something.
128x128phomchick
rvpiano's avatar
rvpiano
2,488 posts
 
Phomchick,

I don’t quite understand your question.
Unless I’m wrong, you wanted to know who wrote the best 1st symphony, best second symphony, etc.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
mayoradamwest
429 posts
 
@twoleftears that’s fair about 4. I do like it. But I also love Tchaikovsky 4. The whole thing is a bit contrived. Mahler makes it unfair for works like Sibelius 2, Rachmaninov 2, Brahms 1, Shostakovich 5 (and 7), etc. and then of course why stop with numbers? How about Strauss’ tone poems like Alpine Symphony and and Ein Heldenlaben. 
edcyn
1,876 posts
 
mayoradamwest -- Duel!  Draw batons!  Mozart sums up the entire universe in his late symphonies, the ones from 29 onwards.  Grace, humanity & transcendent loveliness.  The earlier ones may not all be quite as transcendent but they make up for it in spirit and fun.  To me Mozart's music is like being with the most beautiful woman you've ever seen...a woman that knows how to party, too.
audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,017 posts
 
Symphony No. 5: Shostakovich 

It's a power house of a symphony, at least what I can remember, as I have not played it in a long while...
Ag insider logo xs@2x
mayoradamwest
429 posts
 
@edcyn sorry, not for me. Nothing Mozart ever wrote, to me, rivaled the finale of Mahler 2. There are videos of the end nearly bringing Bernstein to tears conducting it. Not so with Mozart. Or how about Mahler 5, mvt 4 - probably the most beautiful movement of any symphony ever written. 
More to discover