50 greatest symphonies | The Guardian

As Tom Service’s symphony blog reaches its conclusion with Beethoven’s Ninth , we asked the rest of our classical critics what they’d like to add to the list. Do you agree with their sugges...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/sep/09/50-essential-symphonies-blog-what-have-we-missed-from-our-list

Tom Service’s symphony guide concludes with what is arguably the central artwork of Western music, the symphony to end all symphonies Talk about it: What have we missed from the list? Nicho...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/sep/09/symphony-guide-beethoven-ninth-choral-tom-service

Dvořák’s final symphony, with its famous Largo, is one of classical music’s best loved works. TOM SERVICE separates its facts from its fictions Dvorak’s New World Symphony : as legend h...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/sep/02/symphony-guide-dvorak-9th-new-world-symphony-tom-service

Forget, first of all, its mis-translated moniker. Tchaikovsky’s final symphony might be about death, but it’s the piece he termed ‘the best thing I have composed’ and is a confident and s...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/aug/26/symphony-guide-tchaikovsky-sixth-pathetique-tom-service

The most innovative symphony of the 19th century was born from diabolical passions Continue reading...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/aug/19/symphony-guide-hector-berliozs-symphonie-fantastique

The word “pastoral” disguises the true intentions of Vaughan Williams’s third symphony, which confronted the horrors of the first world war “It’s really wartime music – a great deal...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/aug/11/symphony-guide-vaughan-williams-pastoral-symphony

The story of the dedication of Beethoven’s Third is the stuff of symphonic legend. Whatever the truth, the victory at the end of the piece doesn’t just stand for Napoleon, or Beethoven, but f...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/aug/05/symphony-guide-beethovens-third-eroica-tom-service

It's usual to interpret Mahler's last completed symphony as a prefiguring of his death. But different conductors make the work mean very different things More from 50 greatest symphonies Let’...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/jul/29/mahlers-ninth-tom-service-symphony-guide

Beethoven's Pastoral is no musical cul-de-sac, writes TOM SERVICE. It's a radical work, and in its final movement is music more purely spine-tingling and life-enhancingly joyful than almost anywh...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/jul/22/symphony-guide-beethovens-sixth-pastoral-tom-service

In the first of 10 symphony guides to coincide with performances at this year's Proms, Tom Service looks at the triumphs, tragedies and controversies of Mahler's Sixth Symphony. Mahler’s A-mi...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/jul/15/symphony-guide-mahlers-6th-tom-service

Knussen's third symphony is only 15 minutes in length but it covers a massive musical and emotional spectrum Fantastic, and fantastical abstraction. In a sense, that’s a pretty good definitio...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/jul/08/symphony-guide-oliver-knussen-third-symphony-tom-service

Liszt's Faust Symphony blows the bogus symphonic vs programme music debate out of the water A notional “symphonic principle” has implicitly underscored much of the discussion of the pieces ...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/jul/01/symphony-guide-liszt-faust-symphony-tom-service

Farrenc’s symphony is as impressively energetic and structurally satisfying as any of Mendelssohn’s or Schumann’s symphonies – so does that make it “male” or “female”? Who cares? ...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/jun/24/symphony-guide-louise-farrenc-third-symphony-tom-service

Schubert's ninth symphony quotes Beethoven's own ninth. An homage - ironic or not - or his own statement of grand symphonic intent? Tom Service unpicks Schubert's great, and final, symphony Her...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/jun/17/symphony-guide-schubert-ninth-the-great-tom-service

This most convincing of post-tonal symphonies, can we hear Lutosławski's work as a protest piece? One thing is certain: the more you enter its symphonic labyrinth, the more you’ll discover. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/jun/10/symphony-guide-lutosawski-third-tom-service

Bruckner's "saucy" sixth is the symphony that disproves those lazy received opinions about his music “He wrote the same symphony nine times.” "His one-dimensional orchestration is all thank...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/jun/03/symphony-guide-bruckners-6th

Mozart's 41st symphony - the last he composed - is full of postmodernism, palimpsests, and pure exhilaration “You’re a little dull/ My dear Pompeo/The ways of the world/Go study them”. The...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/may/27/symphony-guide-mozart-41st-jupiter-tom-service

With its military bands, dazzling fanfares, and cinematic jump-cuts, Janáček's Sinfonietta is a unique symphonic proposition, sounding as new now as it did at its premiere in 1926. The clue�...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/may/20/symphony-guide-janacek-sinfonietta

This symphony might a reliable and over-familiar staple on concert programmes, but listen to it with fresh ears. It contains some of the darkest and deepest music in the 19th century The very fi...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/may/13/symphony-guide-brahms-fourth-tom-service

The 18-year-old composer's 29th symphony in A major might not have changed musical history, but it changed TOM SERVICE's life. There are many specifically musical reasons why this apparently uns...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/may/06/symphony-guide-mozart-29th-tom-service