Symphony No. 2 (Strauss) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Symphony No. 2 in F minor was written by Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

between 1883 and 1884. It is sometimes referred to as just Symphony in F minor. He gave it the Opus number

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

12, and it also appears in other catalogues as TrV 126 and Hanstein A.I.2. It is not listed in von Asow's catalog.

The symphony

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

, written for a standard orchestra consisting of 2 flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, 2 oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, 2 clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s in B-flat, 4 horn

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

s in F, 2 trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s in F and C, 3 trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

s, tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

, timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

, and strings, was premiered by Theodore Thomas conducting the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

in December 1884. The European premiere, with Strauss himself conducting, took place in October 1885 (on the same night he was the soloist in Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Piano Concerto No. 24

Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart)

The Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 is a concertante work for piano, or pianoforte, and orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart composed the concerto in the winter of 1785–1786 and completed the work on 24 March 1786...

, K. 491, with his own cadenza). In 1887 he played it again with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is one of the the oldest symphony orchestras in the world...

.

The symphony is in the usual four movements, though the scherzo and slow movement are switched from their usual positions, as in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...

Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso, F minor
F minor
F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. The harmonic minor raises the E to E. Its key signature has four flats ....

, 2/4
Scherzo: Presto, A-flat major, 3/4 with Trio in C minor
C minor
C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. The harmonic minor raises the B to B. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with naturals and accidentals as necessary.Its key signature consists of three flats...
Andante cantabile, C major
C major
C major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....

, 3/8
Finale: Allegro assai, molto appassionato, F minor switching to F major
F major
F major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...

, cut time

The first movement is a sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

allegro with three themes. The ways Strauss develops his material in this symphony owes much to Beethoven's middle period music, in particular "the slow movement of the Seventh Symphony

Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...

(in the chromatically inflected stepwise descent at mm. 139—43 of the first movement), the development of the Eroica
Symphony No. 3 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E flat major , also known as the Eroica , is a landmark musical work marking the full arrival of the composer's "middle-period," a series of unprecedented large scale works of emotional depth and structural rigor.The symphony is widely regarded as a mature...

, first movement (repeated tutti pounding of a single dissonance, in movement one, mm. 193—99), and the Egmont Overture, this time in the same key (intensification through repetition of rising motive over dominant harmony, in movement four, mm. 346—49)."

The scherzo was successful and had to be repeated both times Strauss conducted the symphony in Milan in 1887.

A transitional brass motif from the first movement intrudes in the lyricism of the slow movement.

The main theme of the fourth movement is "an agitated low-string melody rising beneath tremolo and sounding very much like Bruckner

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...

." Near the end, about halfway between rehearsal letter

Rehearsal letter

A rehearsal letter is a boldface letter of the alphabet in an orchestral score, and its corresponding parts, that provides a convenient spot from which to resume rehearsal after a break. Rehearsal letters are most often used in scores of the Romantic era, beginning with Louis Spohr...

s T and U, Strauss recalls themes from the previous three movements, though the Andante is recalled second and the Scherzo third. Bruckner's Symphony No. 3

Symphony No. 3 (Bruckner)

Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 in D minor was dedicated to Richard Wagner and is sometimes known as his "Wagner Symphony". It was written in 1873, revised in 1877 and again in 1891....

, in its 1873 version, also recalls themes from the previous movements in the finale at an analogous point.

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

's initial reaction to the piece was two words: "ganz hübsch" ("very nice"). Later he elaborated his advice, encouraging Strauss to "take a good look at Schubert's dances," to guard against "thematic irrelevances," and that there "is no point in this piling up of many themes which are only contrasted rhythmically on a single triad." Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

's Concerto for Orchestra

Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók)

Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123, is a five-movement musical work for orchestra composed by Béla Bartók in 1943. It is one of his best-known, most popular and most accessible works. The score is inscribed "15 August – 8 October 1943", and it premiered on December 1, 1944 in Boston Symphony...

contains "an interesting resemblance between a canon for trumpets and horns in three pairs a quaver apart in the slow movement and the canon for brass in the first movement," something which was first noticed by Theodore Bloomfield.

Strauss recorded some of his own compositions, but this symphony was not among them. The few conductors to record this symphony are Michael Halasz

Michael Halasz

- Biography and career :Michael Halasz began his musical career as principal bassoonist with the Philharmonia Hungarica. After working with that group for eight years, he trained as conductor in Essen, and his first engagement as conductor was at the Munich Gärtnerplatztheater, from 1972 to 1975,...

, Neeme Järvi

Neeme Järvi

Neeme Järvi is an Estonian-born conductor.-Early life:Järvi studied music first in Tallinn, and later in Leningrad at the Leningrad Conservatory under Yevgeny Mravinsky, and Nikolai Rabinovich, among others...

, Hiroshi Wakasugi

Hiroshi Wakasugi

was a Japanese orchestra conductor. He premiered many of the major Western operas in Japan, and was honoured with many awards for cultural achievement....

. A version for piano duet has also been recorded.

See also