Symphony in C

Stravinsky completed a Symphony in E flat in 1907, a Symphony of Psalms in 1930, a Symphony in C in 1940, a Symphony in Three Movements in 1945… and yet, in the opinion of some authorities, he never wrote a true symphony. “Anyone who believes these to be real symphonies,” said the British symphonist Robert Simpson, “cannot be aware of the nature of symphonic thought.”

But if a composer of Stravinsky’s stature produces a work which has the external characteristics of a symphony and which has its own internal logic but which does not accord with your concept of symphonic thought, isn’t it time you revised your concept of symphonic thought? The Symphony in C, which was written between 1938 and 1940 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is in every way worthy of the Haydn, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky scores on which, according to the composer, it is modelled. Rising above personal misfortunes and other serious distractions - including the loss of his daughter and his wife to tuberculosis, his own illness from the same disease, and his migration from Europe to the United States - Stravinsky completed in those two years a significant and engaging example of symphonic thinking on his own terms.

Much of the melodic interest of the work derives from the motif which bounces up through the strings in the opening bars. After some discussion on what to do with that motif, which is tried out in several different forms, it is eventually transformed by a solo oboe into the elegantly mobile main theme of the first movement. The more lyrical second subject, the entry of which is preceded by a dramatically articulated crescendo on a persistent dotted rhythm, incorporates the salient interval of the basic motif. On its introduction by the horn section it is not as clearly defined as the main theme, however, and is destined to play a much less prominent part in the development than its mercurial and ever-present companion. It reappears at a comparatively early stage in the recapitulation, on violins rather than horns this time, but only to allow the crescendo episode to lead into the last appearance of the main theme on flute and clarinet in a short but emphatic coda.

Though written in very different circumstances - the Larghetto concertante in a sanatorium in Switzerland, the Allegretto in Cambridge, Massachussets - the two middle movements act together as a double interlude before the last movement locks into the first to complete the overall structural symmetry. Related to each other rather than to the outer movements, they are well balanced in their respective proportions while the shape of the one, a slow movement with a quicker middle section, is clearly reflected in that of the other, a scherzo with a slower middle section. As the “concertante” qualification suggests, the Larghetto makes a feature of several solo instruments: oboes are particularly prominent in the elaborately melodious lines and delicate textures of the baroque-inspired outer sections. The Allegretto, which follows without a break as cellos and basses take up the last three notes of the Larghetto, is a contrastingly robust study in jagged rhythms and changing metres.

While it is designed to form a link with the first, the last movement has an eventful life of its own before it is deployed to perform its terminal function. Beginning with a sombre and extended dialogue for two bassoons in their lower registers, it explodes into what sounds like the beginning of a brisk fugue. In fact, the fugue never develops and its potential subject is succeeded by several other ideas, including two reminders of the main theme of the first movement, the second of them rumbling heavily on lower wind and strings. It is only after a return of the bassoon dialogue from the Largo introduction and another, more successful attempt at a brisk fugue that the winding-up process begins - not with an acceleration and an application of dynamic pressure but, on the contrary, with a slowing down of the tempo and a quietly sustained version of the basic motif on woodwind. The closing bars of the work expand the basic motif into a still quiet but conclusive but chorale for wood and brass.