Permit me to quote, at some length, I fear, from the closing page of the chapter by Robert Layton on "The Symphony in Britain"(the final chapter of the excellent book he edited in 1993 "A Companion to the Symphony"):
The future of the symphony as we know it is far from certain. After all, the epochs of Greek tragedy and Elizabethan drama can be measured in decades rather than centuries, and after evolving and flourishing for almost three centuries, there is no reason to imagine that the symphony might not follow the motet, the madrigal or the fugue into history. Moreover technological advances have altered our music life beyond recognition. The very means which make our symphonic inheritance so widely accessible also threatens its survival.............Even as late as the beginning of (the 20th century), Medieval and Renaissance music was the preserve of a handful of scholars. Now with the LP and CD explosion.....a creative mind is less certain of the tradition to which he can relate. Vaughan Williams could turn to Elgar, Parry and to folk music and the tradition of Tallis and Byrd; a modern composer is confronted with a repertoire extending back to the Middle Ages and outwards to the whole of the western world. In addition, he is more aware than any generation before him of the music of India and the Orient, which stands at the opposite pole to the kind of musical dynamic of Western symphonic music, and to some extent explains the fascination of certain kinds of minimalism.
Although this enriched repertoire may be a source of delight for listeners and music-lovers, to the creative mind it poses greater challenges than ever before. The sheer volume of musical impulses is intimidating and inhibiting. Moreover, folk music can no longer be the source of inspiration it was for the generation of Vaughan Williams, Bartok and Kodaly, for the wells have been polluted by the all-pervasive phenomenon of pop, with its impoverished(or indeed absence of) vocabulary...In addition, with the phenomenon of muzak, a generation has been fostered to regard music as background, to be disregarded, only its absence noted. This is hardly an environment in which a form as sophisticated as the symphony can be expected to flourish. Of course, composers of quality and imagination will battle against all these odds......."
Layton concluded by naming some composers who were attempting to "rise to the symphony's intellectual and spiritual challenge". He named Anthony Milner(dead), Hugh Wood(one symphony), Richard Rodney Bennett(nothing since 1987), Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and (indeed) David Matthews..
First point: I have a huge regard for Robert Layton as a writer on music and an expert, in particular, on British and Scandinavian music.
Second point: I have always regarded-with the greatest of respect to lovers of Opera, Chamber Music and other forms of Music-the symphony as possibly the greatest form that music can take.
Thirdly: what Layton wrote was penned 18 years ago now and the situation is no better, in fact, in respect of the pervasion of popular music probably even worse.
There is a strong vein of pessimism pervading Layton's views as expressed above and-with a real sense of sadness- I have to admit sharing this outlook.
