Choral Symphony - History

History

The symphony had established itself by the end of the 18th century as the most prestigious of instrumental genres. However, because of its lack of a written text for its focus, it was seen as a vehicle for entertainment rather than for social, moral or intellectual ideas. This view had changed a few decades later, partly because of the achievements in the symphonic genre of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. There was also a change in attitude toward instrumental music in general, and the lack of text, once seen as a handicap, became considered a virtue.

In 1824, Beethoven's Ninth redefined the symphony by introducing text and voice into a previously instrumental genre, thus igniting a debate on the future of the symphony itself. Richard Wagner later claimed that Beethoven's use of words had shown what musicologist Mark Evan Bonds terms "the limits of purely instrumental music and thus marking the end of the symphony as a vital genre". Others were not sure how to proceed—whether to emulate the Ninth by writing symphonies with choral finales, or to develop the symphony genre in a purely instrumental fashion. Eventually, Bonds writes, the symphony was seen "as an all-embracing, cosmic drama that transcended the realm of sound alone".

Some composers both emulated and expanded upon Beethoven's model. Berlioz showed in his choral symphony Roméo et Juliette a fresh approach to the epic nature of the symphony, using voices to blend music and narrative but saving crucial moments of that narrative for the orchestra alone. In doing so, Bonds writes, Berlioz illustrates for subsequent composers "new approaches for addressing the metaphysical in the realm of the symphony". Mendelssohn wrote his Second Symphony as a work for chorus, soloists and orchestra. Labeling the work a "symphony-cantata", he expanded the choral finale to nine movements by including sections for vocal soloists, recitatives and sections for chorus; this made the vocal part longer than the three purely orchestral sections that preceded it. Liszt wrote two choral symphonies, following in these multi-movement forms the same compositional practices and programmatic goals he had established in his symphonic poems.

After Liszt, Mahler took on the legacy of Beethoven in his early symphonies, in what Bonds terms "their striving for a utopian finale". Towards this end Mahler used a chorus and soloists in the finale of his Second Symphony, the "Resurrection". In his Third, he wrote a purely instrumental finale following two vocal movements, and in his Fourth a vocal finale is sung by a solo soprano. After writing his Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies as purely instrumental works, Mahler returned to the vein of "festival-symphonic ceremonial" in his Eighth Symphony, which integrates text throughout the body of the work. After Mahler, the choral symphony became a more common genre, taking a number of compositional turns in the process. Some composers, such as Britten, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams, followed symphonic form strictly. Others, such as Havergal Brian, Alfred Schnittke and Karol Szymanowski, chose either to expand symphonic form or to use different symphonic structures altogether.

Throughout the history of the choral symphony, works have been composed that have reflected particular programmatic compositional goals. One of the earliest such symphonies was Mendelssohn's Second Symphony, commissioned by the city of Leipzig in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type. More than a century later, Henryk Górecki's Second Symphony, subtitled "Copernican", was commissioned in 1973 by the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. In between these two works, in 1930, conductor Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Stravinsky to write the Symphony of Psalms for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and, in 1946, composer Henry Barraud, then head of Radiodiffusion Française, commissioned Darius Milhaud to write his Third Symphony, subtitled "Te Deum", to commemorate the end of World War II.

In the final years of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st century, more choral symphonies were composed as works for special occasions. Krzysztof Penderecki's Seventh Symphony was written to commemorate the third millennium of the city of Jerusalem. Tan Dun's Symphony 1997: Heaven Earth Mankind was composed to commemorate the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong that year to the People's Republic of China. Philip Glass was commissioned to write his Fifth Symphony as one of several pieces to celebrate the beginning of the 21st century.