“Knowing the Canon” or “A Personal Symphonic Cycle”

It’s been such a long time since I wrote a blog post that I thought I would get back into the swing with a fairly uncontroversial topic. For those who aren’t interested in the canon of great orchestral music but who want the educational message, you may want to skip to the end. Following Christopher Cook’s advice I have restricted myself to fewer than 600 words.

A couple of years ago I found a forum which asked the following: What is your personal symphonic cycle? You can choose nine symphonies (lots of composers wrote nine) but one composer’s first symphony, another’s second and so on. You are allowed numbered symphonies only. No repetition of composer and no substitutions.

For all but the most eccentric this rules out composers like Mozart and Haydn who only hit their stride when they were well beyond number nine but it includes all the major symphonists from Beethoven onwards. Now we can’t just do this on a whim you understand, it must be taken seriously. First, here are the candidates for my favourite symphonies:

1 – Candidates – Brahms, Elgar*, Mahler, Sibelius

2 – Candidates – Mahler*, Rachmaninov*, Sibelius*, Vaughan Williams

3 – Candidates – Beethoven*

4 – Candidates – Brahms*, Bruckner, Mendelssohn*, Tchaikovsky*

5 – Candidates – Beethoven, Mahler, Prokofiev*, Shostakovich*, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams*

6 – Candidates – Tchaikovsky

7 – Candidates – Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler, Shostakovich

8 – Candidates – Bruckner, Dvorak, Mahler

9 – Candidates – Bruckner*, Dvorak*

An asterisk means it is my favourite by that composer. You see that I’m having particular problems with 2, 4 and 5, where a lot of composers hit their stride. My list changes (slightly) quite frequently but for now, here is my personal symphonic cycle:

1: Elgar 2: Rachmaninov (listening to it while I type) 3: Beethoven 4: Brahms 5: Sibelius (makes it for Thor’s hammer alone) 6: Tchaikovsky 7: Bruckner 8: Mahler 9: Dvorak

This is now one of my favourite questions for musicians and enthusiasts; if I am stuck in conversation I will ask this and we can normally go for hours. I have been directed to pieces and composers I have never heard before simply through this question.

Education/non-musicians start reading here: last time I interviewed candidates for a music teacher post at KEGS I asked this question (I gave them a couple of hours’ notice that I was going to ask it too). I wanted to find out what they knew about the classical canon and to find out their interests as musicians. Alas, I was disappointed with many of the responses. Apart from the successful candidate, none could name a single symphony with confidence. All had good music degrees from good universities. All were musicians. I can still hardly believe it. Every music teacher I have spoken to who is my age or older loves answering the question. The best student teachers I have had (both in the last two years) have loved it. Many of my sixth formers (and some younger) can answer it. Non-musician (but enthusiast) friends have been able to answer it.

So what I ask you, my readers, is: was my expectation unreasonable? Should music teachers know the classical canon, or have I got it horribly wrong? Will anyone know as many as nine symphonies in 20 years’ time if the budget for music hubs keeps being cut with barely a murmur in the press? But most importantly, what is your personal symphonic cycle and what do you think of mine?

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