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The greatest 20th-century symphonies

Have been pondering the obscure category a bit more.
Bloch: not sure it quite ever gets to great.
Szymanowski: probably not helped by the recordings I have being from Gergiev and Rattle but the symphonies aren't a patch on King Roger or the Stabat Mater.
Glazunov: competent but not earth shattering.
Brian: not great other than scale for the Gothic.
Lloyd: enjoyable enough, but not much more.
Alwyn: close, especially in 4 but not quite.
Bax: reaches a high point in the 6th which I would be happy to put up against the recognised greats.
Bliss: the Colour Symphony is brilliant and not played nearly enough.
 
Interesting. Been thinking about this for days:

Shostakovich Leningrad
Prokofiev 6
Dutilleux Symphony 2

My outlier:
Hanson Romantic Symphony
 
My ulterior motive (aha!) in starting this thread was to get some pointers for new-to-me substantial symphonies via the "outsiders" category... and I don't know Alwyn 4 or Dutilleux 2, so thank you for those suggestions. I must also try Bax 6... I like his 1st, but have never got round to the rest.

The Leningrad I think is great when heard live; whether it works when recorded is another matter. Prokofiev 6 seems rather fine to me, but even so does not convince me that Prokofiev was born to write symphonies. Hanson 2 (the Romantic) I find wonderfully enjoyable... whether it could be labelled "great" I am not so sure.

An outsider for others: Armstrong Gibbs 3, the Westmorland. Lovely tunes. A one-work composer, Gibbs... gotta love 'em :)
 
Another amazing 20th century work is Havergeld Brian’s Gothic Symphony

That was a possible alternative to the Hanson
 
Henze's 7th is probably my favourite. The last two movements are something like a modernist tone poem on the subject of Holderlin's 'Halfte des Lebens'. If you know the poem there's an extraordinary power to the way that Henze translates this early 19th Century lyric into a mediation on the violence of the 20th century.
 


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