Re: Classical music, anyone?

On Nov 29, 9:07�pm, Walter Bushell <pr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <JsAC6K....@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
�djhe...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

(Whereas a symphony has four -- until you get
to Mahler, for whom a symphony has whatever he felt like writing. �:) �)

Often three.

Symphonies have _always_ had as many movements as the composer felt
like writing, as long as it's been a recognized form (rather than a
nickname for some orchestral piece of variable form usually unitary)
-- the reason that so many of Mozart's divertimenti and serenades got
converted into symphonies and vice versa. Six or seven movements were
not completely unknown, and there are several five-movement symphonies
in the Koechel catalogue. In the nineteenth century, there is an
abundance of three-movement symphonies, and a scattering of two- and
even one-movement symphonies (forms that became even more common in
the 20th century) (I think 19th century composers used the
designation for one-movement works when the piece was not programmatic
enough to be considered a tone-poem -- another 19th century formal
innovation -- though both Mozarts and Michael Haydn had essentially
done that kind of thing with the Toy Symphony, the Musikalisher
Spaess, and so forth) . The Haydn pattern of the four-movement
symphony, with the later scherzo replacing the Minuet, is simply the
most common form of what has always been a highly ramified family of
compositions.
.

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