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.