The third volume to appear in the magnum opus of A. Peter Brown takes as its topic the European symphony ca. 1800–ca. 1930 and is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the symphonies of Germany and the Nordic countries and discusses in great detail the symphonies of Weber, Spohr, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Lindblad, Berwald, Svendsen, Gade, Nielsen, Sibelius, Berlioz, Liszt, Raff, and Strauss. Volume 3B will examine the symphonies of Great Britain, Russia, and France during the same period. Brown's series synthesizes an enormous amount of scholarly literature in a wide range of languages. It presents current overviews of the status of research, discusses important former or remaining problems of attribution, illuminates the style of specific works and their contexts, and samples early writings on their reception.
A. Peter Brown (1943–2003) joined the faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 1974 and was professor of musicology and department chair at the time of his death. The author of more than 80 published articles and reviews, Brown was especially known for his scholarship on Joseph Haydn.
Table of Contents
List of PlatesList of TablesPreface to the SeriesPreface to Volume IIIPostscriptAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsOrchestral InstrumentationIdentification of the WorksVolume III Part A: Germany and the Nordic CountriesSection One—The German Classic/Romantic Symphony from ca. 1800 to 1857Chapter One—After Beethoven: Leipzig as the Epicenter of the SymphonyChapter Two—The Symphonies of Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner: Two Symphonic Chapter Three—The Symphonies of Louis SpohrChapter Four—The Symphonies of Felix Mendelssohn-BartholdyChapter Five—The Symphonies of Robert SchumannSection Two—The Symphony in Northern EuropeChapter Six—The Symphony in Nineteenth-Century SwedenChapter Seven—The Symphony in NorwayChapter Eight—The Symphony in Denmark from ca. 1830 to ca. 1925Chapter Nine—The Symphony in Finland from ca. 1850 to 1936Section Three—The Avant-Garde/New School SymphonistsChapter Ten—Hector BerliozChapter Eleven—Franz LisztChapter Twelve—Joachim RaffChapter Thirteen—Richard StraussNotesBibliography of Works CitedIndexIndex of WorksVolume III Part B: Great Britain, Russia, FranceSection Four—The British SymphonyChapter Fourteen—The Symphony in Great Britain: From Potter to ElgarThe Symphonic Milieu from ca. 1800 to ca. 1850The Symphonic Milieu from ca. 1850 to 1912Section Five—The Russian SymphonyChapter Fifteen—The Symphony in Russia: From Glinka to RachmaninoffSection Six—The French SymphonyChapter Sixteen—The French Symphony after Berlioz: From the Second Empire to the First World WarIntroduction: The Symphony in Mid-CenturyBetween Saint-Saëns's Second and Third: The "Revival" of Instrumental Music after 1870French Symphonies after 1885: Classical and Romantic CampsBetween the Mountain Air and d'Indy's Second: The Symphony at the Turn of the CenturyNotesBibliography of Works CitedIndexIndex of Works
A surprising aspect of the twentieth-century musical historiography is that some of the central repertoires of Western art music remain unexplored in broad-based treatments; the exceptions are Donald J. Grout's A Short History of Opera (1947), William S. Newman's History of the Sonata Idea (1959, 3 vols.), and, most recently, Howard Smither's History of the Oratorio (1977, 4 vols.). Except for Newman's efforts for the sonata, the large instrumental genres such as the string quartet and symphony, which form the core of the canon, have received the least attention. The reasons for this neglect have been practical: much of the music for large ensembles was disseminated in parts rather than scores during the eighteenth century, and many of the scores published during the nineteenth century have deteriorated to brittleness. Fortunately, within the 1980s and 1990s a sufficient number of the more obscure symphonies has been made available in editions and reprints so that a measured and reasonable overview can be constructed.
