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The Rise of the Concerto and the Fall of the Symphony in Britain

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ahinton
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« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2013, 03:38:37 pm »

If one allows oneself to contemplate the notion that anything from history is now - or can now be or has somehow become - an anachronism, one is allowing oneself to fall into a large trap of one's own making. "Pastiche" has been mentioned, yet I sense none of that in the symphonies of Maxwell Davies, (David) Matthews or John McCabe, three living composers with 23 symphonies between them to date. Anthony Payne has never written a symphony (of his own!) and has said in unequivocally forthright manner that he never will write one, despite his work being steeped in traditions and despite his having as much idea about symphonic writing as anyone alive, as his work on Elgar 3 well demonstrates. Personally, I do not see that there is "no point" in writing symphonies today, fore that is surely a matter for each composer to decide for his/her own reasons. I have not written one (well, I have written one work that I wanted to be a kind of c.40-minute four-movement symphony condensed into a single one of around a quarter of that duration and called it Sinfonietta) but I have no objection in principle to the notion of writing symphonies, either on a basis of perceived anachronism or indeed on any other grounds; I just don't feel that I am likely to write even one work to which I could give the title "Symphony" (let alone "Symphony No. ×") despite having written works that are reliant on what might loosely be described as symphonic thought. So - it's each to his/her own, methinks; certainly, the symphony is no more dead than the string quartet!
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