are symphonies like 'albums'?

....maybe if you wanted to vastly oversimplify what a symphony is, but to compare a symphony to an album is insulting to the word "symphony".

 

Symphonies comprise multiple parts from every section of the orchestra: two violin sections, viola, woodwinds (multiple instruments), brass (multiple instruments), cello, and sometimes ancillary parts like the percussion kit, harp, piano, a soloist, etc.

 

Moreover, symphonies are written in movements - an entire singular part of the overall work that has a beginning, middle, & end. Some symphonies have just a couple of movements - some have lots. It depends on what the composer was going for. As movements themselves can be considered a discrete musical idea themselves, it's not unusual for them to be lengthy either - anywhere from just a couple minutes to upwards of 20-30.

 

There's a reason the word "masterwork" is another word for symphonies. Today's bands (and by that I mean the 20th/21st century, loosely) have absolutely nothing on the composers of the past who wrote symphonies.

Edited by Asr - 12/7/10 at 11:07am

    To OP: I don't think you can really equate symphonies and albums. Really, any multi-movement classical work (symphony, concerto, mass, etc.) could be thought of as an "album" in the sense that they're a complete work made up of shorter, self-contained sections. I think the biggest difference is that to many pop artists, albums are just collections of songs, rather than a whole work in themselves, and I think that's why the best albums are those that, like symphonies, create a delicate balance between each piece, where it gets them working together like clockwork, so the end result is more than the sum of its parts.

 

    Quote:

Geez... Elitist much? Masterwork is, in no way, another word for a symphony. A masterwork can be a masterpiece in any medium, in any genre. There are plenty of crappy, throwaway symphonies out there.
 

There were no albums or recordings when symphonies started being composed, so there is simply no parallel between albums today with 2-3 minute songs packed into somewhere near an hour long recording. Symphonies were created to perform live. Rock/pop composers write with recording in mind. 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Edited by robm321 - 12/11/10 at 8:17am

I've got to say I think the question is a better one than the OP is being given credit for. It, for my money, depends how you're comparing them, for example (and I know this is a broad generalisation), when I composer had written a new Symphony or Concerto, and it was afterwards played to an audience, would it always be the new music which would get the best reaction from whoever was hearing it. Like there is now, was there always an emphasis placed by the audience on new music they hadn't heard as much or would they hear music so infrequently that they wouldn't know what was new and what wasn't? Very garbled couple of sentences I know but there are certain parallels if you care to appreciate them. Was a new symphony celebrated in much the same way as a new album is today, I realise a lot of composer's music wasn't appreciated at all but surely there were some who's music was.

 

If the question is as simple as I took it to be on first glance then the answer is no and read up on opus numbers, any good description should leave you with more knowledge of classical works.

Edited by Marcus_C - 12/12/10 at 4:26am

^ I'm sure the art-world has always had "flavor of the months" in all times. So, yeah, I'm sure you had plenty of people who would come from hearing a new symphony/opera/whatever and think it was the greatest thing ever, and others who thought it was crap, others who thought so-and-so was much better and this was just a ripoff and others who thought it was pretentious with "too many notes" and whatever. The times and genres change, but people remain the same.

Here is a capsule history of classical music and its audience....

Classical music was originally composed for the church, which had different requirements than popular audiences. Its unlikely that anyone outside the immediate vicinity of the church Bach composed for heard much of his music. A little later, classical music was composed for patrons- music to be performed for royal courts- and it was designed to please an audience of one... the patron himself.

By the Romantic era with the rise of theater, it had become popular entertainment, and was considered very much like albums are in modern times. There were very strong audience expectations about the structure and form of music, and deviating from that could cause controversy. Some composers, like Liszt and Wagner, were popular superstars who toured, performing their works all around Europe.

At the turn of the 20th century, classical music became more avante garde and begun to lose its central spot as entertainment to popular music. In America at the turn of the century, classical music was primarily hundred year old European music played for society ladies. That started to change on the 1930s as American orchestras became more established and visionary music directors like Stokowski could choose their own repertoire. There was a brief Renaissance of modern music and American classical music defined itself. At this point, composers became less of the "rock stars" and conductors moved into the spotlight.

By the latter part of the 20th century the charismatic music directors were replaced by less flamboyant conductors more interested in presenting the music "properly" than expressing an individual interpretive style. Today, classical music has become marginalized and isn't a part of the average person's life, except as generic background music. There are still stars, but it's with a lower case s because they're serving a dwindling niche market.
Edited by bigshot - 12/12/10 at 1:32pm