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The real – and symbolic – power of the symphony has held composers in thrall for over 200 years. But what can it mean today, in our fractured and troubled world?
You are rarely more than a few days away from a symphony at the Proms, but at the Albert Hall this coming week it is a particularly big one for the orchestral statement piece that’s been at the heart of the classical music tradition since, well, roughly the French revolution. On 13 August it’s canonic centrepiece Beethoven’s Symphony No 3, known as the Eroica (Heroic), then through the following week further crowd-pleasers Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10 and Mahler’s Third Symphony. Moving beyond the heavyweights, the programme also features a symphonic gem composed by Croatian Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) during the first world war while she was working as a nurse, and a work that’s fresh off the press.
How can this single form have had such an enduring hold over the imaginations of composers and audiences alike for (at least) two-and-a-half centuries? What, exactly, is the symphony’s secret?
