Sandra Blair, age 15, of Kalispell, Mont., for her question:
WHEN WAS THE FIRST SYMPHONY WRITTEN?
In music, a symphony is an orchestral composition consisting usually of four contrasting sections, or movements. The term was first applied in the 16th century to the instrumental interludes in such musical forms as the cantata, opera and oratorio. The symphony in the modern sense of the term arose in the early 18th century.
About 1700, Italian opera overtures (called sinfonias) were stabilized in the format of three movements. Not organically related to the operas they introduced, these overtures were often performed as concert pieces, and Italian composers began writing independent sinfonias.
By 1740 the symphony had become the principal genre of orchestral music in Germany and Austria and important centers of composition arose in Mannheim, Berlin and Vienna.
Four movement symphonies came out of Vienna with the first movement being given special prominence. Wind instruments were more fully exploited and special care was given to melodic integration.
The Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, the first of the great Viennese symphonists, experimented continually with new devices and techniques in orchestral composition. He composed 104 symphonies in which he greatly lengthened and expanded the symphonic form.
Haydn and his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart considerably influenced each other in symphonic techniques. One of the greatest symphonic masters of all time, Mozart displayed in his 41 symphonies unsurpassed richness of imagination.
Ludwig van Beethoven produced nine symphonies in which the symphonic form was vastly expanded and made capable of portraying an immense range of emotions, conflict and expression.
In the 19th century the emergence of musical romanticism brought two opposing trends in symphonic composition: the incorporation into the symphony of elements of program music and the concentration on ideals of classical form, with melodies and harmonies typical of the 19th century.
Exemplifying the incorporation into the symphony of elements of program music were the French composer Hector Berlioz and the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. Their symphonies have specific literary programs and share elements of the symphonic poem.
The Austrian composer Franz Schubert, by contrast, was essentially classical in his approach to symphonic form yet his melodies and harmonies are unmistakably romantic.
The symphonies of the German composers Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann display the rich harmony characteristic of romanticism.
The Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky wrote six symphonies, programmatic in spirit, that combine intense emotion with traces of Russian folk music.
The Austrians' Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler were influenced greatly by the music dramas of the German composer. Richard Wagner.
The Czech composer Antonin Dvorak is noted for his skillful use of folk tunes.