Chronological Account of the 150 Greatest Symphonies

The Classical Music forum TalkClassical.com conducted a poll of its members to determine the top 150 symphonies ever written. While such polls are clearly not scientific, show huge bias, and have sundry other limitations, I am always fascinated by them.

I was working my blog on Dvorak's 8th Symphony and discussing how he was influenced by Beethoven and Brahms when I realized that I usually sort composers by birth year or genre, but I rarely do the same for individual pieces. 

From a distance, Brahms and Dvorak were very close in timing but, by virtue of his earlier birth year and connection with earlier composers (in this case, Robert and Clara Schumann), I always considered Brahms as a predecessor of Dvorak. 

In reality, while Brahms certainly achieved celebrity status quicker, Dvorak had composed six complete symphonies before Brahms had even completed his third. Or, in terms of percentage (since Dvorak wrote nine symphonies and Brahms only four), Dvorak had written 67% of his symphonies while Brahms had only written 50%.

This realization made me revisit the TalkClassical.com poll to group symphonies according to the date on which they were completed. This opened my eyes to some interesting trends. For more, see below.

Period #1: Classical (1770 - 1799)

While the Classical era began much earlier than 1770, it took Haydn and Mozart time to refine the symphony into the magnus opus it was by the end of their lifetimes. 

Haydn wrote his first symphony in 1759 and by 1770, had written 41.  Mozart wrote his first symphony in 1764 and by 1770 had written six (not including Nos. 2 and 3, which are spurious). By the end of this thirty year period, Haydn had written 65 more and Mozart had written 38 more. 

It was truly during this period that the symphony reached maturity and, although the form has changed, expanded and grown since 1800, works from this era are still overwhelmingly popular. Going by the TalkClassical rankings:

• Makeup: 18 of 150, or 12%
• Top Ten: 2
• Top Twenty: 2
• Top Fifty: 9
• Average Ranking: 71

1770 - 1774
Mozart - Symphony No. 25 (#49)
Mozart - Symphony No. 29 (#117)
Mozart - Symphony No. 28 (#139)

1775 - 1779
Mozart - Symphony No. 31 "Paris" (#107)

1780 - 1784
Mozart - Symphony No. 35 "Haffner" (#78)
Kraus - Symphony in C Minor (#149)
Mozart - Symphony No. 36 "Linz" (#39)

1785-1789
Haydn - Symphony No. 82 "Bear" (#123)
Mozart - Symphony No. 38 "Prague" (#30)
Haydn - Symphony No. 88 (#103)
Mozart - Symphony No. 39 (#28)
Mozart - Symphony No. 40 "Great" (#6)
Mozart - Symphony No. 41 "Jupiter" (#4)

1790 - 1794
Haydn - Symphony No. 94 "Surprise" (#38)
Haydn - Symphony No. 100 "Military" (#67)
Haydn - Symphony No. 101 "Clock" (#131)

1795 - 1799
Haydn - Symphony No. 103 "Drumroll" (#40)
Haydn - Symphony No. 104 (#32)

I guess I never realized that, while Haydn beat Mozart to the symphonic punch, Mozart had written all of his symphonies long before Haydn wrote his most popular ones (the "London Symphonies"). Interesting.

Period #2: Beethoven and Schubert (1800 - 1829)

Some people would draw the line between classical and romantic during this period. Many musicologists pick a year to divide Beethoven's own works between classical and romantic, and I have heard arguments to place Schubert in both camps.

As a layman, I tend to use my ears more than any technical analysis.  As such, I would place Beethoven and Schubert in a category of their own, transitioning out of the classical era and into the romantic era.

As Beethoven and Schubert were both great composers - Beethoven in a race with Bach and Mozart for the claim of "Greatest of All Time" - this period is extremely popular on TalkClassical.com. Amazingly, half of the top ten symphonies were written in this thirty-year period!

• Makeup: 14 of 150, or 9%
• Top Ten: 5
• Top Twenty: 7
• Top Fifty: 9
• Average Ranking: 50

1800-1804
Beethoven - Symphony No. 1 (#114)
Beethoven - Symphony No. 2 (#100)
Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 (#3)

1805 - 1809
Beethoven - Symphony No. 4 (#55)
Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 (#7)
Beethoven - Symphony No. 6 (#12)

1810 - 1814
Beethoven - Symphony No. 7 (#8)
Beethoven - Symphony No. 8 (#34)

1815 - 1819
Schubert - Symphony No.4 "Tragic" (#143)
Schubert - Symphony No. 5 (#50)
Schubert - Symphony No. 6 "Little" (#145)

1820-1824
Schubert - Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished" (#14)
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 "Choral" (#1)

1825 - 1829
Schubert - Symphony No. 9 "Great" (#9)

Period #3: Early Romantic (1830 - 1864)

Ahhh, the early romantic era! Boasting composers such as Berlioz (born 1803), Mendelssohn (1809), Chopin (1810), Schumann (1810), Liszt (1811), Wagner (1813) and Verdi (1813), the early romantic era was a time of rapid changes across Europe as individuality and took center stage and the restraints of englightenment-era classicism were thrown off.

As part of this rejection of standard forms, early romantic composers became less interested in symphonies and more interested in free form pieces (e.g. Lizst), opera (e.g. Wagner, Verdi) and music for solo piano (e.g. Chopin, but also Liszt). Of this rowdy bunch, perhaps Mendelssohn and Schumann stayed closest to the examples set by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; indeed, half of the symphonies from this era belong to them.

Given this dynamic, it's easy to understand why only two of these symphonies crack the top 50 on the TalkClassical.com list. Perhaps I'm biased, as Chopin is my favorite composer and I cherish music from this era, but my own subjective ranking of this era would not be as dour. I particularly enjoy Schumann's Symphony No. 3, nicknamed "Rhenish".

• Makeup: 13 of 150, or 9%
• Top Ten: 0
• Top Twenty: 0
• Top Fifty: 2
• Average Ranking: 78

1830 - 1834

Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique (#21)

Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 5 "Restoration" (#119)

Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 4 "Italian" (#24)

Berlioz - Harold en Italie (#126)

1835 - 1839

Berlioz - Roméo et Juliette (#126)

1840 - 1844

Schumann - Symphony No. 1 "Spring" (#108)

Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 3 "Scottish" (#58)

1845 - 1849

Berwald - Symphony No. 3 "Singulière" (#84

1850 - 1854

Schumann - Symphony No. 3 "Rhenish" (#54)

Schumann - Symphony No. 4 (#83)

1855 - 1860

Bizet - Symphony in C (#74)

Liszt - Faust Symphony (#68)

Period #4: Late Romantic (1865 - 1899)

With the onset of Brahms, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak, the symphony again returned to the vogue. The era of the virtuoso was waning and instead of rejecting classical forms, composers began modifying them and imbuing them with romantic principles. 

Brahms, Dvorak and Saint-Saens were all part of this movement even as Brahms and Saint-Saens in particular feuded with more their more radical contemporaries.

The result of these changes led to what might be considered a second golden age of the symphony. The statistics from the TalkClassical.com list confirm this:

• Makeup: 32 of 150, or 21%
• Top Ten: 2
• Top Twenty: 5
• Top Fifty: 14
• Average Ranking: 74

1865 - 1870

Rimsky-Korsakov - Symphony No. 2 "Antar" (#147)

1870 - 1874

Bruckner - Symphony No. 2 (#137)

Raff - Symphony No. 5 "Lenore" (#120)

Bruckner - Symphony No. 3 (#135)

Bruckner - Symphony No. 4 "Romantic" (#62)

1875 -1879

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 3 "Polish" (#140)

Borodin - Symphony No. 2 (#150)

Brahms - Symphony No. 1 (#27)

Brahms - Symphony No. 2 (#56)

Bruckner - Symphony No. 5 (#79)

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4 (#66)

1880 - 1884

Dvorak - Symphony No. 6 (#142)

Bruckner - Symphony No. 6 (#133)

Brahms - Symphony No. 3 (#35)

1885 - 1889

Brahms - Symphony No. 4 (#10)

Bruckner - Symphony No. 7 "Lyric" (#37)

Dvorak - Symphony No. 7 (#48)

Tchaikovsky - Manfred Symphony (#124)

Saint-Saens - Symphony No. 3 "Organ" (#43)

Bruckner - Symphony No. 8 "Apocalyptic" (#19)

Franck - Symphony in D minor (#57)

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 5 (#41)

Dvorak - Symphony No. 8 (#36)

1890 - 1894

Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" (#11)

Glazunov - Symphony No. 4 (#118)

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique" (#13)

Mahler - Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" (#2)

1895 - 1899

Breach - Gaelic Symphony (#127)

Bruckner - Symphony No. 9 (#14)

Mahler - Symphony No. 3 (#81)

Sibelius - Symphony No. 1 (#141)

Period #5: Pre-war (1900 - 1919)

Since the exit of the romantic era, music has become more difficult to classify. Part of the reason for this is the much greater diversity of composers, all stemming from different nations with different ideas.

Let's look back at musical history up until now. Baroque music had two primary centers of thought - Italy (Vivaldi, et. al.) and what is now Germany (Bach, Handel, etc.). Classical era music was very Austrian in nature. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert all lived and worked in Austria; all but Beethoven were born there.

It is during the early romantic era that some diversification can be seen, but even many of these composer can be roughly grouped into French (Berlioz, Chopin, Bizet, Offenbach), German (Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt for parts of his life) and Italian (Verdi, Liszt for part of his life) cohorts.

Late romantic music, however, is not so easily to classify in this way. Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and the "Russian Five" require that Russia be added to this list. Dvorak and Smetana cry out for Bohemia. Austria makes a comeback with Mahler and Bruckner. Composers began traveling more frequently. All of this yields a cross-pollination effect that is difficult to understand systematically.

Once the 20th century began, all bets were off with regards to musical classification. It could be argued - and possibly correctly - that the romantic era extends at least another ten or twenty years beyond my arbitrary category. 

Indeed, some composers, such as Rachmaninoff, Elgar, and Sibelius (whose works are on this list) and Debussy, Ravel and Richard Strauss (who aren't) were active for the first 20-30 years of the 20th century, and all could be considered far more romantic than modern. Others, however - Schoenberg, for instance - certainly couldn't.

This is why I have decided to categorize 20th century classical music by the divisions "Pre-war", "Between Wars", and "Contemporary". These are not perfect, but hopefully they are practical.

Note that most of the popularity of this era, according to TalkClassical.com, is Mahler's symphonies. Of Mahler's nine complete symphonies, six of them are in this era and four of those are in the top twenty overall.

• Makeup: 26 of 150, or 17%
• Top Ten: 0
• Top Twenty: 5
• Top Fifty: 10
• Average Ranking: 69

1900 - 1904

Mahler - Symphony No. 4 (#20)

Taneyev - Symphony No. 4 (#138)

Mahler - Symphony No. 5 (#15)

Sibelius - Symphony No. 2 (#31

Mahler - Symphony No. 6 "Tragic" (#17)

1905 - 1909

Mahler - Symphony No. 7 (#92)

Schoenberg - Chamber Symphony No. 1 (#82)

Suk - Asrael Symphony (#97)

Mahler - Symphony No. 8 (#51)

Rachmaninoff - Symphony No. 2 (#29)

Sibelius - Symphony No. 3 (#112)

Elgar - Symphony No. 1 (#73)

Scriabin - The Poem of Ecstasy (#95)

1910 - 1914

Ives - Symphony No. 3 "The Camp Meeting" (#105)

Mahler - Symphony No. 9 (#18)

Elgar - Symphony No. 2 (#115)

Glière - Symphony No. 3 "Ilya Muromets" (#60)

Nielsen - Symphony No. 3 "Sinfonia Espansiva" (#93)

Sibelius - Symphony No. 4 (#46)

Bantock - Hebridean Symphony (#110)

Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 2 "London Symphony" (#45)

1915 - 1919

Sibelius - Symphony No. 5 (#16)

Nielsen - Symphony No. 4 "Inextinguishable" (#47)

Szymanowski - Symphony No. 3 "Song of the Night" (#134)

Prokofiev - Symphony No. 1 "Classical" (#52)

Alfvén - Symphony No. 4 (#88)

Period #6: Between Wars (1920 - 1939)

I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of more modern classical music is limited, so I will not comment much on this period except to say that the TalkClassical.com members generally rank these lower than any other category with only two in the top 50. The standout in this group is Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, which was considered #5 overall.

• Makeup: 24 of 150, or 16%
• Top Ten: 1
• Top Twenty: 1
• Top Fifty: 2
• Average Ranking: 91

1920 - 1924

Bax - Symphony No. 1 (#80)

Nielsen - Symphony No. 5 (#26)

Myaskovsky - Symphony No. 6 (#72)

Sibelius - Symphony No. 6 (#71)

Ives - Symphony No. 4 (#90)

Sibelius - Symphony No. 7 (#61)

1925 - 1929

Prokofiev - Symphony No. 2 (#89)

Janáček - Sinfonietta (#75)

Brian - Symphony No. 1 "Gothic" (#102)

Prokofiev - Symphony No. 3 (#63)

Webern - Symphony (#53)

1930 - 1934

Hanson - Symphony No. 2 "Romantic" (#129)

Roussel - Symphony No. 3 (#94)

Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms (#116)

Popov - Symphony No. 1 (#136)

Schmidt - Symphony No. 4 (#148)

Hindemith - Mathis der Maler (#65)

1935 - 1939

Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 4 (#106)

Walton - Symphony No. 1 (#113)

Barber - Symphony in One Movement (#146)

Rachmaninoff - Symphony No. 3 (#128)

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 4 (#111)

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 5 (#5)

Schoenberg - Chamber Symphony No. 2 (#104)

Period #7: Modern (1940 - 1999)

As before, I will not comment except to say that this period is also ranked somewhat lower than others, with only four symphonies in the top 50.

• Makeup: 24 of 150, or 16%
• Top Ten: 0
• Top Twenty: 0
• Top Fifty: 4
• Average Ranking: 85

1940 - 1944

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 7 (#87)

Stravinsky - Symphony in C (#77)

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 8 (#101)

Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 5 (#98)

Prokofiev - Symphony No. 5 (#22)

1945 - 1949

Copland - Symphony No. 3

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 9 (#130)

Stravinsky - Symphony in Three Movements (#91)

Honegger - Symphony No. 3 "Liturgique" (#59)

Prokofiev - Symphony No. 6 (#42)

Messiaen - Turangalîla-Symphonie (#44)

1950 - 1954

Prokofiev - Symphony No. 7 (#144)

Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 7 "Sinfonia Antartica" (#76)

Martinů - Symphony No. 6 (#64)

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 10 (#23)

1955 - 1959

Hovhaness - Symphony No. 2 "Mysterious Mountain" (#109)

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 11 "The Year 1905" (#69)

1960 - 1964

(none)

1965 - 1969

Berio - Sinfonia (#85)

1970 - 1974

Schnittke - Symphony No. 1 (#121)

1975 - 1979

Górecki - Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" (#70)

1980 - 1984

Lutoslawski - Symphony No. 3 (#132)

1985 - 1989

Simpson - Symphony No. 9 (#125)

1990 - 1994

Penderecki - Symphony No. 3 (#99)

1995 - 1999

Rautavaara - Symphony No. 8 "The Journey" (#96)

Conclusions

As one would expect, Mozart, Beethoven and Mahler dominate with 12 of the top 20 symphonies just between the three of them.  

Because I like rankings and statistics, here are some more just for fun:

Top 10: Beethoven & Schubert (5), Classical (2), Late Romantic (2), Between Wars (1)

Top 20: Beethoven & Schubert (7), Late Romantic (5), Pre-War (5), Classical (2), Between Wars (1)

Top 50: Late Romantic (14), Pre-War (10), Beethoven & Schubert (9), Classical (9), Modern (4), Early Romantic (2), Between Wars (2)

Average Ranking: Beethoven & Schubert (50), Pre-War (69), Classical (71), Late Romantic (74), Early Romantic (78), Modern (85), Between Wars (91)

Total: Late Romantic (32), Pre-War (26), Between Wars (24), Modern (24), Classical (18), Beethoven & Schubert (14), Early Romantic (13)