BBC Top 9 Symphonies Poll

[John H White]

I've just heard on the Radio 3 3 Breakfast programme, that goes out every week day morning, that the presenters want to know what everyone's top 9 symphonies are. I think this could be a golden opportunity for us to push our own favourite unsung symphonic works. It would be a great shame if they just got inundated with the usual warhorses from "ignorant" listeners.
   I think we need to go to 3breakfast@bbc.co.uk to cast our votes.

[albion]

I've just heard on the Radio 3 3 Breakfast programme, that goes out every week day morning, that the presenters want to know what everyone's top 9 symphonies are.

More specifically, you have to match each of nine numbered symphonies to your favourite example by a particular composer.

My list might look something like this -

1st Symphony - Frederic Cliffe
2nd Symphony - Arnold Bax
3rd Symphony - Richard Arnell
4th Symphony - Malcolm Arnold
5th Symphony - Hubert Parry
6th Symphony - Edmund Rubbra
7th Symphony - Ralph Vaughan Williams
8th Symphony - Havergal Brian
9th Symphony - Robert Simpson

[semloh]

Whilst I take your point about pushing our "unsungs", which is fine,     forgive me if I use this as an opportunity to reiterate my dislike of these polls. 

In Australia, they're really just a marketing exercise, in my view, and serve no cultural purpose. If the same applies in the UK, then a handful of votes for obscure composers will just be ignored, and the poll will give the BBC an excuse to market a CD set of excerpts from "Your Favourite Symphonies" ... Beethoven 5, Mozart 40, Tchaik 5, or similar.  Yuk!!

[Mark Thomas]

I'm afraid that I'm with Semloh in the "Bah, humbug!" camp.

[Alan Howe]

Me too. Sorry. It'll make no difference at all, I'm afraid. Cynical, moi?

[albion]

My list might look something like this -

1st Symphony - Frederic Cliffe
2nd Symphony - Arnold Bax
3rd Symphony - Richard Arnell
4th Symphony - Malcolm Arnold
5th Symphony - Hubert Parry
6th Symphony - Edmund Rubbra
7th Symphony - Ralph Vaughan Williams
8th Symphony - Havergal Brian
9th Symphony - Robert Simpson

But I completely agree that contacting the BBC with any such suggestions would be an exercise in futility. Now that they've started encouraging listeners to ring in with maudlin, tedious or plain bizarre tales about why they want to hear a particular piece of music (did anybody happen to catch the interminable saga of the ham-sandwich-in-the-programme about a week ago) I've actively begun praying for the axe to fall and put the station out of it's misery.

[mbhaub]

The results will look like this:
1) Brahms 1
2) Brahms 2
3) Beethoven 3
4) Brahms 4
5) Beethoven 5
6) Tchaikovsky 6
7) Beethoven 7
Beethoven 8
9) Beethoven 9, with Dvorak 9 a contender.

30 years ago when our classical FM station moved to a new frequency with a new transmitter they did something similar and the predictable favorites were played in order finishing with work receiving the most votes. They did the Top Classical 100 -- and #1 was Beethoven 5.

If it were up to me:
1) Kalinnikov 1
2) Elgar 2
3) Bax 3
4) Schmidt 4
5) Raff 5
6) Mahler 6
7) Sibelius 7
Glazunov 8 -- had to get him in here somewhere!
9) Vaughan Williams 9

[eschiss1]

Hrm. Some of my favorite examples are after no.9, though few enough of them that it's a good idea the list only continues to 9. Ok, so this isn't a list of composers such that e.g. you like their 1st symphony better than anyone else's first symphony, but rather you like their, e.g., first symphony better than any other symphony of theirs. Ok, important logical point, there.)
No.1 - Charles Edmund Duncan-Rubbra
No.2 - Nicolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky
No.3 - Roger Huntington Sessions
No.4 - William Havergal Brian
No.5 - Shin-Ichiro Ikebe
No.6 - Mieczysław Weinberg
No.7 - Roy Ellsworth Harris
No.8 - Walter Hamor Piston, Jr.
No.9 - Beethoven

[Dundonnell]

Of course it is a silly exercise

(Interestingly though, the writers in the (London) "Times" came up with
1: Bizet Symphony in C
2: Mahler 2nd
3: Brahms 3rd
4: Nielsen 4th
5: Sibelius 5th
6: Beethoven 6th
7: Shostakovich 7th
8: Bruckner 8th
9: Beethoven 9th

...which isn't a bad list, by and large).

Let me follow Albion though and identify 9 favourite British symphonies-

1. Brian's Gothic (or Kenneth Leighton 1st)
2: Benjamin Frankel 2nd
3: William Alwyn 3rd
4: Edmund Rubbra 4th (or Daniel Jones 4th)
5: Richard Arnell 5th
6: Alun Hoddinott 6th
7: RVW's Antarctica
8: Daniel Jones 8th (or Edmund Rubbra 4th or Havergal Brian 8th)
9: Robert Simpson 9th

Sorry..cop out..I just can't make up my mind

[Dundonnell]

Rubbra's 1st

That's very interesting

[John H White]

Oh dear, I've boobed!
     Here's my amended list that I intend to pass on to the 3 Breakfast presenters in place of what I first sent them:-
         Symphony No 1 in E major        Hans Rott
         Symphony No 2 in D minor        Louis Spohr
         Symphony No 3 in E flat            L. van Beethoven
         Symphony  No 4 in F major       Ferdinand Ries
         Symphony No 5 in C minor        Franz Lachner
         Symphony No 6 in D major        Johann Rufinatscher
         Symphony No 7 in E major                 Anton Bruckner
         Symphony No 8 in G minor        Franz Lachner.
         Symphony No 9 in D minor        L. van Beethoven

[Peter1953]

Well, I suppose my top 9 of unsung favourites are not of any interest to the BBC...

1.Raff 1
2.Rubinstein 3
3.Rufinatscha 5
4.Noskowski 1
5.Dietrich
6.Gänsbacher
7.Reinecke 2
8.Cliffe 1
9.Draeseke 3

---------------------------

Please allow me to correct my stupidity.
My new list should be:

1.Raff
2.Bortkiewicz
3.Rubinstein
4.Taneyev
5.Rufinatscha
6.Rufinatscha
7.Atterberg
8.Röntgen
9.Glazunov

[Alan Howe]

Mine'd be (unsungs only):

Dietrich
Berger 2
Draeseke 3
Taneyev 4
Raff 5
Rufinatscha 6
Abert 7

.....er, ah! No idea how to continue. No suggestions, thank you! 

[albion]

Well, I suppose my top 9 of unsung favourites are not of any interest to the BBC...

1.Raff 1
2.Rubinstein 3
3.Rufinatscha 5
4.Noskowski 1
5.Dietrich
6.Gänsbacher
7.Reinecke 2
8.Cliffe 1
9.Draeseke 3

... but they might be to a sudoku compiler.

[Peter1953]

... indeed, level 5