What symphony can you not live without?

[John H White]

That's what Rob Cowan has been asking listeners to his 3 Breakfast programme on BBC Radio 3 this week. So please get in quickly with your choice, e-mailing it to 3breakfast@bbc.co.uk. I went for Lachner 5, with Lachner 8 and Rufinatscha 6 as 2nd and 3rd choices but, so far, he seems to have ignored my e-mail.

[albion]

Cowen's 6th 

[eschiss1]

... probably Beethoven 9 or Mahler 6 *gets thrown out of forum after being made to walk the plank* (though Stenhammar 2 would be somewhere on a high list...) (on re-thinking and cheating by editing, and regretting that the question isn't about quartets - my two favorite works being for that medium - no, still too difficult... there are so many wonderful ones I would miss terribly - Wellesz 2, Myaskovsky 2, Sibelius 3 4 6 7, Brian 31, Mahler 4&9 too of course, to start or continue, in probably the wrong order, a too-long list. one? no wonder my cd-cases were always so large before I got an iPod. anyway. )

[Jonathan]

Alkan's for solo piano would get my vote!

[dafrieze]

Schumann's 2nd - or 3rd.  Depends on my mood.

[jerfilm]

Mahler 7 and Bruckner 9.  Of the unsungs, I'm still partial to Alfred Hill's Symhony #2 in Eb - The Joy of Life......

Maybe I'm a lightweight......

Jerry

[JimL]

Bruckner 5.  No, wait!  Dvorak 6! 

OK.  For unsungs, Rufinatscha 6 beyond a shadow of a doubt!

[alberto]

Beethoven 6, Schubert Unfinished.
Unsung : Dukas.

[Mark Thomas]

Raff's Lenore.

[Alan Howe]

Draeseke 3. Because of its synthesis of progressive New German ideas and idiom with traditional notions of the symphony as the supreme musical form.
Sung: Brahms 1. Because of its utterly triumphant use of conservative ideas in an utterly fresh and inspiring way.

[John H White]

I trust, gentlemen, that you have all e-mailed 3breakfast@bbc.co.uk and registered your choices with Rob Cowan.

[Pengelli]

Havergal Brian's 'Gothic Symphony' with Boult or Schmidt conducting, (not the nasty Naxos!)
Well,life would have been allot duller without it!
Vaughan Wiliams: his 'London' or 'Fifth' with Barbirolli at the helm,but I'm afraid I can't decide which. They're both indispensable.

[Syrelius]

Berwald: Sinfonie Singuliere.

[jksteven]

I am hard pressed on this topic, but I am particularly engulfed by Bruckner's 6th when I hear it. Of all symphonies, however, I have grown very weary of Tchaikovsky's 6th. Way overplayed, beat to death.

jksteven

[Mark Thomas]

Welcome, JK!