Symphony cycles competition !

[Petrushka]

I was going to open a book, and your concert going allied with your extraordinary memory would have you comfortably odds on !!

I've heard a lot of music in live concerts but you do get the same constituents of a symphony cycle cropping up over and over again and it makes it more difficult to catch even the great composers in off the beaten track repertoire. This is especially true of Dvorak and Prokofiev while even Sibelius 3, 6 & 7 are comparative rarities nowadays. Luckily for this competition I caught 3 & 6 in the same programme (Los Angeles PO/Salonen)!

Safe programming is something of a curse in any quest to catch anything like Prokofiev 2 or Dvorak 3 to name but two.

[teamsaint]

Ah if you mean the complete symphonies done by various bands as some people seem to assume then :

in which case Beethoven more than once , Mahler , and Bruckner bar 1 and 2 , Elgar and Walton.,

Yep, that was what I was after.

Talking about RVW, I was thinking that most up to #6 get programmed reasonably often ,but7 , 8 and 9 not nearly so much ? Certainly many fewer outings at the Proms than 1 to 6 .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/events/composers/4f3b96ed-f1f1-4a68-be73-0e0657837096/works

[Petrushka]

I think I can claim 8 points.

I've seen all the Shostakovich symphonies in bits and pieces over the years.

Mendelssohn's symphonies when JEG recorded them all with LSO

Similarly Prokofiev's symphonies with the LSO and Gergiev and more recently Noseda

Rachmaninoff three symphonies and four piano concertos

Tchaikovsky six numbered symphonies plus Manfred

Sibelius symphonies, mainly with Colin Davis as he programmed these relatively frequently

Nielsen Symphonies, but only because Colin Davis discovered these towards the end of his career and played them with the LSO (the only time I've seen any of them).

Mahler symphonies including 10 in any form. I've seen all of these, several more than once. when I first discovered Mahler, I saw the first five in order (although this wasn't planned), 1 with Rattle, 2 with Abbado, 3 with Levine and 4 and 5 with Tennstedt.

I've also seen complete cycles of the Beethoven symphonies with Rattle and Haitink and all the Elgar symphonies.

I do see a lot of live music as I usually go to 2 or 3 concerts or operas every week. For example, last week I saw Hugh Cutting and the English Concert at the Wigmore Hall, Tosca at Covent Garden and Cinderella at ENO.

For anyone living in, ir near, London it would have been perfectly possible to see complete cycles but it's been a source of frustration to me that work, financial and travel issues have limited me to catching only a couple or so from them. The Rostropovich Shostakovich cycle in 1998 was a case in point, as was a Tchaikovsky cycle with the St Petersburg Philharmonic with Temirkanov in the 1990s.

I've been attending concerts since 1972 but I've started to wind it down since the pandemic so imagine that there's much that will remain forever elusive.

[smittims]

I must say I was impressed by LHC's concert attendance. It reminds me of the details kept by a Liverpudlian concert goer who entered in his miniature scores a table showing not only the occasions he had heard each work , but when and where, who was conducting and even the timings for the movements. This was all well before the computer age.

[oliver sudden]

Only one point for me I fear, and that’s only if the Mahler ‘10 in any form’ includes the Adagio on its own!

I went to lots of concerts in Melbourne and Sydney as a student, but as soon as playing became a full-time thing they thinned out drastically, and the arrival of twins four years ago has more or less put paid to concerts for now…

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yep, that was what I was after.

Talking about RVW, I was thinking that most up to #6 get programmed reasonably often ,but7 , 8 and 9 not nearly so much ? Certainly many fewer outings at the Proms than 1 to 6 .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/events/composers/4f3b96ed-f1f1-4a68-be73-0e0657837096/works

Forgot Brahms and Tschaikosvky. Reckon I’m only missing one RVW - the ninth* . Must make an effort …

LHC deserves some sort of classical music medal for tireless support of the industry.

*BTW the new Pappano LSO recording is excellent - now that’s a potential live cycle I’d make an LHC style effort

[LHC]

I've heard a lot of music in live concerts but you do get the same constituents of a symphony cycle cropping up over and over again and it makes it more difficult to catch even the great composers in off the beaten track repertoire. This is especially true of Dvorak and Prokofiev while even Sibelius 3, 6 & 7 are comparative rarities nowadays. Luckily for this competition I caught 3 & 6 in the same programme (Los Angeles PO/Salonen)!

Safe programming is something of a curse in any quest to catch anything like Prokofiev 2 or Dvorak 3 to name but two.

You're quite right about safe programming. Plenty of opportunities to see Dvorak 6 - 9 or Schubert 8 and 9, but performances of the other symphonies are as rare as hen's teeth. In many case the only opportunity to see the less well known symphonies is when a conductor and orchestra decide to put on a complete cycle.

And as you've noted in your later response, living in London makes a huge difference to having an opportunity to see performances.

[pastoralguy]

Hmm. Does playing them count too? Ironically, in my undistinguished career as a violinist I played all the Mahler symphonies but not all the Beethovens.

The RSNO played cycles of the Shostakovich and Prokofiev symphonies which led to the Chandos recordings and I know I went to all these concerts. Gibson and the RSNO were forever playing Sibelius when I was a teenager so I know I’ve heard them all in concerts.

I’m sure that Gergiev and the LSO played a Prokofiev symphony cycle at the Edinburgh Festival years ago. I remember asking a violinist in the orchestra how they kept all these works under their fingers. He candidly replied that there was a LOT of sight reading going on which was fine so long as the conductor didn’t get too creative!

[HighlandDougie]

I’m sure that Gergiev and the LSO played a Prokofiev symphony cycle at the Edinburgh Festival years ago.

They did - I was there. Leonidas Kavakos (I think) played the VCs.

[CallMePaul]

Just Nielsen and Sibelius for me, both with BBV Phil/ Storgards in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. While I was living in London in the 1990s I did see the Philharmonia/ Harnoncourt Beethoven cycle and have heard both Elgars, albeit in different cities and 20+ years apart. Sadly I missed the Elgar/ Payne 3rd when the Hallé did it some years back. Now that I have moved to Leeds opportunities to go to orchestral concerts are fewer (good chamber and piano concerts though)

[cloughie]

My only claim is Tchaikovsky - Temirkanov/ St Petersburg SO, 1990s Birmingham Symphony Hall - the whole cycle was a great experience - most of the cycle seen from the platform being the orchestra. This was the way I was accustomed to attending the Halle concerts at Sheffield City Hall as a school pupil - Barbirolli’s facial expressions and asides to the orchestra, usually sitting behind the timps
Does that give me 7 points ts?.

[Petrushka]

My only claim is Tchaikovsky - Temirkanov/ St Petersburg SO, 1990s Birmingham Symphony Hall - the whole cycle was a great experience - most of the cycle seen from the platform being the orchestra. This was the way I was accustomed to attending the Halle concerts at Sheffield City Hall as a school pupil - Barbirolli’s facial expressions and asides to the orchestra, usually sitting behind the timps
Does that give me 7 points ts?.

That was the Tchaikovsky cycle I went to but could only manage a couple of them, unfortunately.

[duncan]

At least two Beethovens: the LSO Haitink in full and an accumulation of the others.

Two Mahlers, including performances of full 10ths (three different completions/performing versions - get me!). I do not get on with the eighth and this is my limiting factor: I've seen Tennstedt and the LPO at the RFH (awe-inspiring) and Andrew Davis and the BBCSO at St Paul's (not memorable). I'm not going to go out of my way to see another.

At least one Brahms but I couldn't give chapter and verse.

I sustained LHC levels of concert going for about 20 years - we might recognise each other - but have tailed off to about 30 a year in the last decade. Give the number of concerts I've been to that is a bit feeble really, I should make more of an effort to seek out the less familiar corners of the repertoire.

... other than The Ring which is , arguably, symphonic, and a genuine cycle ...

10 complete live Ring cycles. I'm counting the first Proms cycle with different performers over 4 years as one and three different casts in the same production at the ROH as three. I'm not counting a couple of cut-down versions nor a comfortable two more from adding together unconnected performances from single operas or incomplete cycles.

[pastoralguy]

I wait for the day when having heard all the George Lloyd symphonies will be a possibility…

[Gargoyle]

3 for me

1. Nielsen
2. Sibelius
3. Mahler

(I'm allowing myself a point for Mahler because I had a ticket for #10 a few years back, but it got substituted with 7 at a day's notice. I've seen all the others)

Came close with RVW, never seen #8.

Most Bruckner, but not 1 or 6.