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Scan 877
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1916
14 lines. Read by computer on 6 September 2026. Printed page 797. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1SYMPHONY CONCERTS
3It would be invidious, however, to endeavour to point out as yet those in whose works his influence is most strongly shown. It must suffice to record that there are still many younger composers who are able to pass the symphonic ordeal with some success. Among the most successful are the Bohemian composer Dvořák, and the Italians Sgambati and Martucci; and among English works may be mentioned with much satisfaction the Scandinavian Symphony of Cowen, which was original and picturesque in thought and treatment; the Elegiac Symphony of Stanford, in which excellent workmanship, vivacity of ideas, and fluency of development combine to establish it as an admirable example of its class; and an early symphony by Sullivan, which had such marks of excellence as to show how much art might have gained if circumstances had not drawn him to more lucrative branches of composition. It is obvious that composers have not given up hopes of developing something individual and complete in this form of art. It is not likely that many will be able to follow Brahms in his severe and uncompromising methods; but he himself has shown more than any one how elastic the old principles may yet be made without departing from the genuine type of abstract instrumental music; and that when there is room for individual expression there is still good work to be done, though we can hardly hope that even the greatest composers of the future will surpass the symphonic triumphs of the past, whatever they may do in other fields of composition. [Among modern writers there are very few whose fame rests mainly on their symphonies, apart from the composers of 'symphonic poems.' Anton Bruckner's eight complete symphonies, Gustav Mahler's six, and Weingartner's two, have achieved great success in Germany at different dates; but among those that have attained universal acceptance all over the cultivated world, none are more remarkable than the three later works of Tchaikovsky, and the seven of Glazounov. The last composition of the former reached an astounding degree of popularity in London owing to the circumstances of the composer's death just at the time of its introduction into England; in the matter of form it differs from his other symphonies, which are on strict classical lines, in certain particulars, such as ending with the slow movement, and giving to the second subject of the first movement a rate of speed as well as a character in sharp contrast with those of the first subject.]
5C. H. H. P.
7SYMPHONY CONCERTS. Under this title are grouped the descriptions of some of the most famous organisations in Great Britain and America, at which the performance of symphonic works is the main object in view. The occasional performance of a symphony at a miscellaneous or choral concert is not enough to justify the title of 'Symphony Concert,' and the attempt here made must be understood to deal only with more or less permanent institutions. There is little hope that it can be complete, even for the countries already named; in Germany, where every small town has its orchestral concerts as a matter of course, and in France, where there is much less centralisation than among ourselves, the task of cataloguing even the names of the various bodies which are founded for the performance of symphonic works would be impracticable.
9LONDON
11The first English organisation of the kind is the PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY, founded 1813, for which see vol. iii. pp. 698-703. The NEW PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY (see vol. iii. p. 366) was the next, founded in 1852. In 1855 the famous Crystal Palace Saturday Concerts began their long and useful career, which was carried on until 1901, being for all that time under the able direction of August Manns. (See vol. iii. p. 42, for their early history.) The concerts began with the first Saturday in October, and lasted, with an interval at Christmas, till the end of April. The orchestra consisted of 16 first and 14 second violins, 11 violas, 10 violoncellos, and 10 double basses, with single wind, etc. The programmes usually contained two overtures, a symphony, a concerto, or some minor piece of orchestral music, and four songs. The distinguishing feature of the concerts was their choice and performance of orchestral music. Not to mention the great works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Spohr, Weber, and other time-honoured classics, the audience were familiar with Schumann's symphonies and overtures, and with Schubert's symphonies and 'Rosamunde' music, at a time when those works were all but unknown in the concert-rooms of the metropolis. Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony was first played here; so was his overture to 'Camacho'; Brahms's Symphonies, Pianoforte Concertos, Variations on a theme of Haydn and 'Song of Destiny'; Raff's various Symphonies; Liszt's 'Ideale'; Rubinstein's Symphonies; Goetz's Symphony, Concerto, and Overtures; Smetana's 'Vltava'; Schubert's Symphonies in chronological order; Wagner's 'Faust' Overture; Sullivan's 'Tempest' Music and Symphony in E; Benedict's Symphony in G minor, and many other works were obtained (often in MS.) and performed before they were heard in any other place in the metropolis. Bennett's 'Parisina' was first played there after an interval of a quarter of a century. A very great influence was exercised in the renaissance of English music by the frequent performance of new works of importance by Mackenzie, Parry, Stanford, Cowen, and others.
13A disposition was apparent in the managers of the concerts to present the audience with
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