0:00:08 > 0:00:11Vienna, 1912.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14The certainties of Empire were falling away
0:00:14 > 0:00:16and cataclysmic wars were looming.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20Through the course of the 20th century
0:00:20 > 0:00:23the world would change faster than ever before.
0:00:23 > 0:00:28MUSIC: "Symphony No.9" by Gustav Mahler
0:00:28 > 0:00:32And composers responded to those changes, too.
0:00:32 > 0:00:34The symphony now connected continents,
0:00:34 > 0:00:36reached vast new audiences
0:00:36 > 0:00:39and inevitably ended up in the front line.
0:00:39 > 0:00:45MUSIC: "Symphony No.9" by Gustav Mahler
0:00:52 > 0:00:56Mahler's 9th Symphony, his last, was given its first performance
0:00:56 > 0:01:00here in Vienna in 1912, a year after the composer's death.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03In part, a radical new musical vision,
0:01:03 > 0:01:06in part, a nostalgic yearning for the past.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09the last bars of the piece fade away gently into silence.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13The time for the triumphant apotheosis at the end of symphony,
0:01:13 > 0:01:15as in Beethoven's 9th, was over.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18But for how long?
0:01:18 > 0:01:22BELL TOLLS
0:01:30 > 0:01:36MUSIC: "Symphony No.1" by Dmitri Shostakovich
0:01:36 > 0:01:40In the first decades of the 20th century,
0:01:40 > 0:01:42Russia was in turmoil.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47Here in St Petersburg, then called Petrograd,
0:01:47 > 0:01:49revolutionaries deposed the Tsar
0:01:49 > 0:01:51with the hope of creating a new world.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59The composer Dmitri Shostakovich
0:01:59 > 0:02:02claimed that as a boy he was here at the Finland railway station
0:02:02 > 0:02:07when Lenin returned to Russia in 1917 to lead the revolution.
0:02:07 > 0:02:13MUSIC: "Symphony No.1" by Dmitri Shostakovich
0:02:13 > 0:02:17Shostakovich remembered walking on Nevsky Prospekt
0:02:17 > 0:02:20in a funeral procession for victims of the revolution
0:02:20 > 0:02:23and he composed a funeral march for them.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27He was a musical prodigy,
0:02:27 > 0:02:31enrolling at the music conservatoire aged only 13 in 1919.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34His 1st Symphony was his graduation piece
0:02:34 > 0:02:37and the first significant music of the Soviet regime.
0:02:39 > 0:02:45MUSIC: "Symphony No.1" by Dmitri Shostakovich
0:02:48 > 0:02:52At Shostakovich's old apartment in St Petersburg
0:02:52 > 0:02:55I met Olga Digonskaya, who looks after the archive of his music.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04IN DIALECT
0:03:34 > 0:03:40MUSIC: "Symphony No.1" by Dmitri Shostakovich
0:03:46 > 0:03:50When Shostakovich was 16 his father died,
0:03:50 > 0:03:52and to earn money for the family
0:03:52 > 0:03:54he started playing the piano for silent movies
0:03:54 > 0:03:56at this cinema just around the corner
0:03:56 > 0:03:59from the Shostakovich apartment.
0:03:59 > 0:04:05MUSIC: "Symphony No.1" by Dmitri Shostakovich
0:04:20 > 0:04:22IN DIALECT
0:04:43 > 0:04:45Gareth, try a little softer at the beginning, sweeter,
0:04:45 > 0:04:47and then as we go, I broaden out
0:04:47 > 0:04:49in the second bar for you so you fill out the sound.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53Mark Elder is working with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the highly
0:04:53 > 0:04:55contrasted music of this symphony.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58OK? Let's have another go. Just play four, everybody.
0:04:58 > 0:05:03STRINGS PLAY SWEEPING MELODY
0:05:06 > 0:05:08This first symphony seems to me
0:05:08 > 0:05:11to be the soundtrack for a silent movie.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13I don't know what the story is,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16but he uses the orchestra as a cast of characters.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19It's very funny. He had such a wicked sense of humour,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22something, of course, Stalin knocked out of him completely
0:05:22 > 0:05:23later on in his life.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26Just once again. Two, three, four, one.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31'And a man so influenced by the other art forms,
0:05:31 > 0:05:34'in the theatre and in cinema.'
0:05:34 > 0:05:37And all that comes together in this first symphony.
0:05:37 > 0:05:43BRASS AND WOODWIND PLAY LOUDLY
0:05:43 > 0:05:49STRINGS PLAY TOGETHER DISCORDANTLY
0:05:54 > 0:05:56In these early years of the revolution,
0:05:56 > 0:05:58art was integral to the message.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02Agit-prop poster art took propaganda to the villages.
0:06:02 > 0:06:06STRINGS BOW QUICKLY IN UNISON
0:06:06 > 0:06:08And in Petrograd,
0:06:08 > 0:06:11the concert halls, music halls and cinemas played
0:06:11 > 0:06:13to a new proletarian audience.
0:06:13 > 0:06:18I think it's easy to forget now that the avant-garde was
0:06:18 > 0:06:20an international phenomenon in the 1920s
0:06:20 > 0:06:22that also reached the Soviet Union.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26People in the theatre were still doing radical things
0:06:26 > 0:06:29in Moscow and St Petersburg.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33There was also a feeling that the 1920s were
0:06:33 > 0:06:35the beginning and the end of an era,
0:06:35 > 0:06:38so there was this kind of dark cloud
0:06:38 > 0:06:41hanging over the era as well.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44So you have in Shostakovich's 1st Symphony
0:06:44 > 0:06:47both of these things together.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51VIOLIN PLAYS MOURNFUL MELODY
0:06:52 > 0:06:56Artists in Russia during the 1920s were experimenting
0:06:56 > 0:06:58with the radical and the innovative.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00But it wasn't to last.
0:07:00 > 0:07:05Under Stalin, Socialist Realism became state policy in 1932,
0:07:05 > 0:07:08and composers were expected to serve society
0:07:08 > 0:07:11and reflect the life around them in the most optimistic light.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14It was a requirement that was to cause Shostakovich problems
0:07:14 > 0:07:16on several occasions.
0:07:16 > 0:07:23MUSIC: "Symphony No.1" by Dmitri Shostakovich
0:07:36 > 0:07:40'In the fourth movement, Shostakovich shows himself
0:07:40 > 0:07:43'to be the master of, already at the age of 19,
0:07:43 > 0:07:46'the portrayal of terror.'
0:07:46 > 0:07:49'More than any other 20th-century composer in my view,'
0:07:49 > 0:07:52'he is able to put into sound'
0:07:52 > 0:07:57the feelings that we all have after a nightmare,
0:07:57 > 0:08:00after being frightened by some unexpected event in our lives.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03And let's face it,
0:08:03 > 0:08:07the Soviets knew a lot about living under terror.
0:08:07 > 0:08:13BRASS PLAY ENERGETIC MELODY IN UNISON
0:08:13 > 0:08:17STRINGS JOIN THE MELODY
0:08:17 > 0:08:23WHOLE ORCHESTRA JOINS TOGETHER FOR FINAL CLIMAX
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Although it was a 19-year-old's graduation piece,
0:08:36 > 0:08:40Shostakovich's First Symphony was a huge success.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Within a year it was performed in Berlin, Vienna, Philadelphia
0:08:43 > 0:08:45and Buenos Aires.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48Nikolai Malko, who conducted the premiere, wrote in his diary,
0:08:48 > 0:08:50"I feel as if we have started a new page
0:08:50 > 0:08:53"in the history of symphonic music."
0:08:56 > 0:09:01MUSIC: "Washington's Birthday" from Holiday Symphony by Charles Ives
0:09:01 > 0:09:03Whilst Shostakovich was quickly picked up
0:09:03 > 0:09:06as the musical face of Communist Russia,
0:09:06 > 0:09:09Charles Ives, a composer in capitalist America,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12was so ahead of his time, his music still isn't well-known today.
0:09:12 > 0:09:19MUSIC: "Washington's Birthday" from Holiday Symphony by Charles Ives
0:09:19 > 0:09:22Born in New England,
0:09:22 > 0:09:26Ives drew on the folk, popular and church music he heard around him,
0:09:26 > 0:09:30putting them together in a new way in pieces like his Holiday Symphony.
0:09:30 > 0:09:38MUSIC: "Holiday Symphony" by Charles Ives
0:09:38 > 0:09:41This is the house in Danbury, Connecticut,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44where Charles Ives was born in 1874.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47Ives is one of history's more eccentric composers.
0:09:47 > 0:09:49A true American original.
0:09:49 > 0:09:53While Shostakovich, as a boy, composed a funeral elegy
0:09:53 > 0:09:54for victims of the revolution,
0:09:54 > 0:09:58Ives composed a funeral elegy for his pet cat,
0:09:58 > 0:10:01and after popular acclamation, wrote other elegies
0:10:01 > 0:10:02for his neighbours' animals.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09This is the bed where Charles Ives was born
0:10:09 > 0:10:11October 20th, 1874.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14That rocking chair I know is original.
0:10:14 > 0:10:16And this is very special.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19This is the cradle, and he was laid in that cradle.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22And that was the beginning of the Charles Ives that we all know
0:10:22 > 0:10:24and many of us love.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28TRUMPETS PLAY A FANFARE
0:10:28 > 0:10:31Charles Ives received an impeccable musical education.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35His father, George Ives, was a music teacher and band leader.
0:10:43 > 0:10:48George's Ives' band would play for marches and for holidays,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51memorial services.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55He was considered Danbury's brass band.
0:11:00 > 0:11:05We're sitting in the parlour and surrounding us is Main Street.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07And Charles Ives' father, George,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10who had been the youngest band director in the Union Army
0:11:10 > 0:11:11in the Civil War,
0:11:11 > 0:11:15he used to rehearse the kids and the adults who played
0:11:15 > 0:11:17in these community bands,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20and they would march back and forth up and down the hill.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22And Charles Ives absolutely absorbed
0:11:22 > 0:11:24everything that happened on Main Street.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29MUSIC: "Holiday Quickstep" by Charles Ives
0:11:29 > 0:11:33The piece we're playing tonight is called Holiday Quickstep,
0:11:33 > 0:11:36one of the very first things that Charles Ives wrote.
0:11:36 > 0:11:38He was 17 years-old when he wrote it.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42MUSIC: "Holiday Quickstep" by Charles Ives
0:11:45 > 0:11:46It's quite well constructed
0:11:46 > 0:11:49for somebody that young. It's a nice piece of music.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58Charles Ives was in his mid-30s when he composed his Second Symphony,
0:11:58 > 0:12:01a decade before his more radical Holiday Symphony.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03Completed in 1909,
0:12:03 > 0:12:07it didn't get its first performance until 1951,
0:12:07 > 0:12:09with Leonard Bernstein conducting.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13FRENCH HORNS PLAY IN UNISON
0:12:13 > 0:12:16STRINGS PLAY SWEEPING MELODY
0:12:19 > 0:12:21'He was an incredible visionary.
0:12:21 > 0:12:26'He wanted to try and find a sort of American beauty,
0:12:26 > 0:12:31'one that would represent to him the voice of his people and his land.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34'He wanted to write a European symphony
0:12:34 > 0:12:37'with the movements corresponding roughly'
0:12:37 > 0:12:42to the scale and proportions and colours of a European model,
0:12:42 > 0:12:46but he wanted all the material to be American tunes...
0:12:46 > 0:12:49TROMBONES PLAY MAIN THEME
0:12:49 > 0:12:53'..to prove that America could hold its head high and do something
0:12:53 > 0:12:56'worthy of Beethoven and Brahms and all the others that had come before.'
0:12:56 > 0:13:02MUSIC: "Symphony No.2" by Charles Ives
0:13:04 > 0:13:08Although he took the European symphony as his starting point,
0:13:08 > 0:13:13Ives certainly wasn't slavish in his admiration for that tradition.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16"You can learn more from a day in a Kansas wheat field," he once said,
0:13:16 > 0:13:18"than three years in Europe."
0:13:18 > 0:13:20And when told by his father
0:13:20 > 0:13:23that a symphony generally finished in the same key it started in,
0:13:23 > 0:13:27he replied that was just as silly as having to die in the same house
0:13:27 > 0:13:29you were born in.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39He didn't want to make his living with music because
0:13:39 > 0:13:42if he had to make a living in music,
0:13:42 > 0:13:44he had to be able to sell what he wrote.
0:13:44 > 0:13:48And he had no intention of having to write to cater to your taste
0:13:48 > 0:13:50or to my taste or anybody's taste.
0:13:50 > 0:13:52It was more important to him
0:13:52 > 0:13:54to write music that maybe people would like someday.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58Sure, everybody likes to be liked. But he didn't really care.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01So what did he do instead? He went and he sold insurance.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05As a matter of fact, he became a millionaire selling insurance,
0:14:05 > 0:14:09and in doing that, he didn't have to worry about selling his music.
0:14:09 > 0:14:14Much of Ives' experimentalism came directly from his father,
0:14:14 > 0:14:18who, amongst other things, got him to sing and play the piano
0:14:18 > 0:14:20in two different keys at the same time.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31One of his father's experiments
0:14:31 > 0:14:34that I know Charles Ives was really interested in,
0:14:34 > 0:14:36because it's well documented.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40His dad had one band march out of St Peter Church on Main Street...
0:14:42 > 0:14:45..and then he had another band coming from Richfield
0:14:45 > 0:14:48and they were marching the opposite direction
0:14:48 > 0:14:50playing two different pieces of music.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57And the effect of the two different pieces of music,
0:14:57 > 0:15:01you can hear it in almost everything Charles Ives later wrote.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08BANDS PLAY TWO DIFFERENT PIECES
0:15:17 > 0:15:19He was the first person, certainly in America,
0:15:19 > 0:15:23to write two different things going on at the same time.
0:15:23 > 0:15:24One or two of his pieces,
0:15:24 > 0:15:28I find, work best when you have two conductors and you say
0:15:28 > 0:15:30to part of the orchestra, "Follow the other guy."
0:15:30 > 0:15:33And you somehow try and meet in the middle.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36Because he had this idea of overlapping musical events
0:15:36 > 0:15:38then finally coming together.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43'Some of his favourite march tunes, popular songs
0:15:43 > 0:15:45'and above all, one of his favourites,
0:15:45 > 0:15:46Columbia Gem Of The Ocean.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49'which comes at the end of the symphony
0:15:49 > 0:15:50'roaring out on all the trombones.'
0:16:04 > 0:16:08'So he needs to bring all this to a finale'
0:16:08 > 0:16:11and there's this great moment when three or four tunes
0:16:11 > 0:16:15are played by different parts of the orchestra all at the same time.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44The farewell gesture is a raspberry.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48Now the thing about this is that he wrote a short note "bah"
0:16:48 > 0:16:53as if it was a slap across the face, with this strange dissonant chord.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57And then I listened to Lennie Bernstein's performance which
0:16:57 > 0:17:03is so wonderful and so inspiring and, blow me down, he extended it.
0:17:03 > 0:17:05It was like a "bluurgh" rather than a "bah"
0:17:05 > 0:17:07and I think it works best that way.
0:17:25 > 0:17:26That's great!
0:17:28 > 0:17:32Back in Europe, the Austro-Hungarian empire had imploded
0:17:32 > 0:17:34in the First World War and Vienna
0:17:34 > 0:17:37was no longer the musical centre it had been.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41The symphony had been taken up by new national voices.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46In Britain, the "land without music" as the Germans dubbed it,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50the musical world received a new lease of life through
0:17:50 > 0:17:51the work of Edward Elgar,
0:17:51 > 0:17:56whose First Symphony was extremely well received, even in Germany.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59A new generation of composers sprang up, among them
0:17:59 > 0:18:03Ralph Vaughan Williams, who studied here at the Royal College of Music.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07He felt strongly the need to create a "national style",
0:18:07 > 0:18:08whatever that might mean.
0:18:08 > 0:18:10"We English composers,"
0:18:10 > 0:18:13he said, "are always saying, Here are Wagner and Brahms,
0:18:13 > 0:18:16"and Grieg and Tchaikovsky, what fine fellows they are.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20"Let us try and do something like this at home. Always forgetting
0:18:20 > 0:18:21"that it will not sound at all
0:18:21 > 0:18:25"like this when transplanted from its native soil."
0:18:25 > 0:18:27He was passionately interested in folk song, of course,
0:18:27 > 0:18:29and this permeates his music.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33Although it also, of course, led to accusations of parochialism
0:18:33 > 0:18:36in some of his pieces like the Pastoral Symphony.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10'Many people dismiss a lot of the romantic English music
0:19:10 > 0:19:12'written in the first half of the 20th century'
0:19:12 > 0:19:15with the unfortunate label of "cow-pat music".
0:19:18 > 0:19:21'And I think one has to find the strength
0:19:21 > 0:19:25'and the spine in this music and not allow it to meander
0:19:25 > 0:19:29'just like a little stream drifting through a landscape.'
0:19:32 > 0:19:35'And of course the countryside in this symphony doesn't mean
0:19:35 > 0:19:38'sheep and shepherds and Arcadia at all.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41'It means the countryside of the First World War, the Somme,
0:19:41 > 0:19:42'northern France,'
0:19:42 > 0:19:46where Vaughan Williams went as a stretcher-bearer
0:19:46 > 0:19:48working with the ambulance corps.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04You have this feeling of something never sitting, always shifting.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10Many of the melodies being in modes rather than in keys.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15The modes that came from originally religious music or folk songs.
0:20:15 > 0:20:20And it's not at all the landscape
0:20:20 > 0:20:24of cherished abundancy.
0:20:24 > 0:20:26It's the landscape of death.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40'And in the middle of this desecrated landscape, he heard
0:20:40 > 0:20:44'somebody practising the bugle, distantly, in a trench.'
0:20:46 > 0:20:48'It was a haunting sound.'
0:20:54 > 0:20:56'And he's put it into this
0:20:56 > 0:21:00'landscape of the second movement. Which is very, very sad music.'
0:21:05 > 0:21:08'You have to play it on a special instrument which won't have
0:21:08 > 0:21:10'all the notes necessarily in tune, like a natural horn or
0:21:10 > 0:21:14'a natural trumpet, so it sounds a bit bitter-sweet.'
0:21:35 > 0:21:39Because many modernist composers in the 1920s rejected the symphony
0:21:39 > 0:21:43as a 19th century form, composers like Vaughan Williams who wrote
0:21:43 > 0:21:47nine in total were often dismissed as old-fashioned and conservative.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55'The symphony has always been a public genre'
0:21:55 > 0:22:00where you have to talk to a lot of people through music in a big space.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04People like Vaughan Williams, Elgar and Sibelius,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07they are not necessarily not modern.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10In my view they are actually more important than the avant garde
0:22:10 > 0:22:14in many ways, because they are saying very important things about
0:22:14 > 0:22:18modernity to this large audience, sometimes very disconcerting things.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26Since the 19th century, there had been a continuing debate
0:22:26 > 0:22:30about whether symphonies needed to say anything at all.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36Whilst Ives was kicking up a storm with his popular American marches,
0:22:36 > 0:22:41and Shostakovich was celebrating the October Revolution and May 1st,
0:22:41 > 0:22:43in his second and third symphonies,
0:22:43 > 0:22:46in Finland, Sibelius was pursuing
0:22:46 > 0:22:49the old classical idea of pure music.
0:22:49 > 0:22:53In 1904 he moved here to a specially built house where he could
0:22:53 > 0:22:56work in peace in the landscape that he loved so much.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00And it was here, in 1924, that he produced his seventh symphony.
0:23:00 > 0:23:05A symphony distilled into one continuous movement.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08After the vast canvases of Bruckner and Mahler,
0:23:08 > 0:23:12here was Sibelius paring things down, and producing a symphony
0:23:12 > 0:23:15that was just 20 minutes long.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24Ainola, Sibelius' house is just 40km from Helsinki...
0:23:26 > 0:23:28..but feels a world away.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31He lived here for the last 50 years of his life.
0:23:33 > 0:23:39Let's have a look at Sibelius' last study and bedroom
0:23:39 > 0:23:44and Sibelius wrote most of his pieces on this desk, not on the piano.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48- It's quite simple, isn't it? Ah, there's his cigars.- Yes.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50Everywhere in this house...
0:23:50 > 0:23:51- He loved smoking.- Cigar boxes.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54- There's his tuning fork.- Yes, yes.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56So this is where he composed all his symphonies?
0:23:56 > 0:24:01He made long day walks around here, many hours thinking
0:24:01 > 0:24:06and composing in his head and when he had something...
0:24:06 > 0:24:07He came back here.
0:24:07 > 0:24:08- Yes.- Marvellous.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21This is the autographed score of Sibelius' last symphony,
0:24:21 > 0:24:23Symphony Number 7.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26Here you can see the original title of the work,
0:24:26 > 0:24:29Fantasia Symphonica, Number One.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32And later Sibelius changed the title.
0:24:32 > 0:24:36He wanted it to be one of his numbered symphonies.
0:24:44 > 0:24:49- It's quite wild, the writing, isn't it?- Yes.- Angry?- Yes.
0:24:49 > 0:24:55And of course he was, as usual, in haste when writing this score.
0:24:56 > 0:25:02Now what's intriguing about this is its length, it's short,
0:25:02 > 0:25:04- and one movement?- Mm.
0:25:04 > 0:25:10He was very consciously trying to find a new kind of symphonic form
0:25:10 > 0:25:13and the 7th Symphony is, of course,
0:25:13 > 0:25:16the final product of this development.
0:25:31 > 0:25:35The progress through the seven symphonies
0:25:35 > 0:25:37is a very clear line to me.
0:25:37 > 0:25:44For him the compositional process was paring back, paring down.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47The beauty of the 7th Symphony is in this crystallisation.
0:26:01 > 0:26:06'His processes are not like those of Beethoven and Brahms.
0:26:06 > 0:26:12'Sibelius' way is to make things organically develop, all the time.'
0:26:15 > 0:26:18'It goes from one mood it might be a light hearted,
0:26:18 > 0:26:22'vivacious gaiety and he builds it up'
0:26:22 > 0:26:28and up into something more epic and more austere perhaps, grander.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31'And his ability to do that was second to none.'
0:26:49 > 0:26:50Despite its organic sound,
0:26:50 > 0:26:53writing music was often a struggle for Sibelius.
0:26:53 > 0:26:58He had periods of depression and a fondness for cigars and drink.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01He called alcohol his most faithful companion...
0:27:05 > 0:27:09..that is alongside his wife Aino, who persuaded him
0:27:09 > 0:27:12to move to this more isolated life in the country.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17They were married over 65 years.
0:27:17 > 0:27:18And Sibelius said that
0:27:18 > 0:27:22"Without Aino, I couldn't make any of my symphonies".
0:27:22 > 0:27:26Aino was his supporter, understanding.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37- So this is the famous portrait of Sibelius by Gallen-Kallela?- Yes.
0:27:37 > 0:27:39Beautifully dressed.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43Yes he was always very well dressed, but the hair!
0:27:43 > 0:27:47- He never combed his hair!- Yes. - How old was he here?
0:27:47 > 0:27:4830.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50- He was good looking.- Yes.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54He was very handsome, he had extremely blue eyes.
0:27:54 > 0:27:55- Piercing eyes.- Yes.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01After finishing his seventh symphony in 1924,
0:28:01 > 0:28:05Sibelius lived another 30 years, but never completed another symphony.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08He worked for years on an eighth, promising it to Koussevitzky
0:28:08 > 0:28:12and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but it was never finished.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15He destroyed the manuscript before anyone could hear it.
0:28:18 > 0:28:22- So he burnt his eighth symphony? - Yes.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25- The manuscript in this stove in 1945?- Yes.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29He was very, very depressed with his eighth symphony.
0:28:29 > 0:28:33People was waiting, waiting always.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35- Expectation for it?- Yes.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39Because after, after the burning, and destroying,
0:28:39 > 0:28:43he was very happy and relaxed.
0:28:45 > 0:28:47It's odd it still feels warm.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50Yes, Sibelius is still at home.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55Sibelius can step in from the garden.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58- That's a scary idea.- Yes.
0:29:09 > 0:29:14'I would say that his symphonies are, in a way, timeless.'
0:29:14 > 0:29:19They continue the classic, romantic symphonic tradition
0:29:19 > 0:29:21without being conservative.
0:29:21 > 0:29:26And they look ahead without being modernist.
0:29:45 > 0:29:47It's impossible to know whether it was
0:29:47 > 0:29:49because of his acute self criticism,
0:29:49 > 0:29:51whether he came to feel outside the mainstream
0:29:51 > 0:29:53of 20th century symphonic music,
0:29:53 > 0:29:56or whether he simply wanted to take it easy in his sauna.
0:29:56 > 0:29:57But for whatever reason,
0:29:57 > 0:30:01Sibelius' 7th Symphony represents a kind of conclusion.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04And for the remaining 30-years of his life,
0:30:04 > 0:30:06he effectively lapsed into silence.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11But by the time the 7th Symphony had been completed,
0:30:11 > 0:30:15new technological developments meant that symphonic music
0:30:15 > 0:30:18would be heard by far more people than ever before.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22The first revolution was the gramophone,
0:30:22 > 0:30:25introduced around the turn of the century,
0:30:25 > 0:30:28which meant that recorded music could be consumed at home.
0:30:28 > 0:30:30MUSIC PLAYS
0:30:35 > 0:30:39But the recording process wasn't well suited to orchestral music.
0:30:39 > 0:30:40This is the first recording
0:30:40 > 0:30:43of Beethoven's 5th made in Berlin in 1910.
0:30:43 > 0:30:47MUFFLED, SCRATCHY RECORDING
0:30:48 > 0:30:52For symphonic music, the real revolution came in 1925
0:30:52 > 0:30:55with the introduction of the electric microphone.
0:30:55 > 0:30:58A wider range of instruments could now be recorded
0:30:58 > 0:30:59and in larger groups.
0:30:59 > 0:31:04MUSIC: "Symphony No. 5" by Beethoven
0:31:09 > 0:31:14This is Richard Strauss conducting Beethoven's 5th in 1928.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27Decent orchestral recordings could now be made for the first time.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30All ready? Right.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35MUSIC: "Pomp And Circumstance March No. 1" by Elgar
0:31:43 > 0:31:46Sir Edward Elgar inaugurating the new Abbey Road
0:31:46 > 0:31:48recording studios in 1931.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51A veteran composer ushering in a new age.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02Although he was conservative in his compositions,
0:32:02 > 0:32:05Elgar was forward-looking in one way.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09He was the first great composer to record his own symphonies.
0:32:09 > 0:32:11Although he was in his 70s
0:32:11 > 0:32:14and hadn't written anything significant for a decade,
0:32:14 > 0:32:17he made an effort to create a recorded legacy of his work,
0:32:17 > 0:32:20much of it done here in the new Abbey Road studios.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24He made the first recording of his 2nd Symphony in 1927.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37Elgar's 2nd symphony had been written back in 1911
0:32:37 > 0:32:41and while he was writing it King Edward VII died.
0:32:41 > 0:32:45As the Master of the King's Music, Elgar dedicated the symphony
0:32:45 > 0:32:49to his memory with the heavy tread of its stately funeral march.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52MUSIC: "Symphony No. 2" by Elgar
0:33:05 > 0:33:08Behind the pomp of that formidable moustache
0:33:08 > 0:33:12and the circumstance of being the Master of the King's Music,
0:33:12 > 0:33:16there was a very shy, introverted, insecure man.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20Now in the 2nd Symphony, we see a man pouring out his heart
0:33:20 > 0:33:23in a way that he, as a man in society,
0:33:23 > 0:33:24found very difficult to do.
0:33:24 > 0:33:27The work is dedicated to the memory of the king
0:33:27 > 0:33:29who died while he was writing the piece.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32But the truth is that this slow movement,
0:33:32 > 0:33:34which is such a great epitaph,
0:33:34 > 0:33:38is not a movement of national mourning,
0:33:38 > 0:33:42because it had already been written before the king died.
0:33:42 > 0:33:44It was his personal epitaph
0:33:44 > 0:33:47for a very surprising death of a very dear friend.
0:33:47 > 0:33:50His name was Rodewald,
0:33:50 > 0:33:53a man who had supported him before he was at all known.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56And really believed in him and really gave him confidence.
0:34:06 > 0:34:10'The main melody is, of course, the melody of a funeral march
0:34:10 > 0:34:13'and it has the trudge of a funeral march.
0:34:13 > 0:34:15'But over and above the tune you hear the oboe...'
0:34:20 > 0:34:25..completely free, keening for this lost friendship.
0:34:25 > 0:34:29And that's so bold and unmistakable.
0:34:40 > 0:34:46'And when the orchestra cries out, screams out about that loss,'
0:34:46 > 0:34:49it's one of the most moving things that I think exist
0:34:49 > 0:34:51in our nation's musical life.
0:35:31 > 0:35:35The arrival of electric recording in the 1920s meant the rapid growth
0:35:35 > 0:35:38of the recording industry and broadcasting,
0:35:38 > 0:35:39which began around the same time.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43Symphonies were no longer confined to the concert hall,
0:35:43 > 0:35:45but could now be heard by millions.
0:35:45 > 0:35:49The BBC Symphony Orchestra, which plays the music for this film,
0:35:49 > 0:35:51was founded in 1930.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54And these developments in the musical world led also
0:35:54 > 0:35:55to the rise of conductors
0:35:55 > 0:35:58as transmitters of music to a much wider world.
0:35:58 > 0:36:01And as Elgar was quick to recognise, to the establishing
0:36:01 > 0:36:04of a musical canon, old as opposed to new music.
0:36:04 > 0:36:08These great works of the past took on more and more weight
0:36:08 > 0:36:10as superstar conductors travelled the world
0:36:10 > 0:36:14with a vast symphonic repertoire at the tip of their batons.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23Bruno Walter was a protege of Mahler's
0:36:23 > 0:36:25and it was he who had conducted the premiere
0:36:25 > 0:36:27of his 9th Symphony in Vienna.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31He also conducted the Berlin premiere
0:36:31 > 0:36:34of Shostakovich's First Symphony.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41Leopold Stokowski, was born in Britain,
0:36:41 > 0:36:43but made his name in the US.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49And the Italian Arturo Toscanini was described by Mussolini as
0:36:49 > 0:36:52the greatest conductor in the world.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55But Toscanini was no supporter of Mussolini
0:36:55 > 0:36:58and he went to America in 1939.
0:37:04 > 0:37:09One of the biggest conducting stars of the time was Wilhelm Furtwangler,
0:37:09 > 0:37:12seen here conducting for Hitler's birthday in 1942.
0:37:16 > 0:37:21Hitler wasn't present, but Goebbels, the Nazi's propaganda minister was,
0:37:21 > 0:37:24and made a point of congratulating Furtwangler at the end.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32As conductors got caught up in the politics of the time,
0:37:32 > 0:37:35composers too were conscripted.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45The outbreak of World War II increased the pressure on composers
0:37:45 > 0:37:48to make public statements with their work.
0:37:48 > 0:37:51The symphony inevitably became a propaganda tool.
0:37:51 > 0:37:53Never was this a more urgent requirement
0:37:53 > 0:37:56than during one of the most painful periods of Russian history,
0:37:56 > 0:38:00the siege of Leningrad, which is commemorated here at this museum.
0:38:00 > 0:38:03The city was blockaded by Nazi forces
0:38:03 > 0:38:06for two-and-a-half years. 872 days.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09A third of the population died, from enemy bombardment,
0:38:09 > 0:38:10cold and starvation.
0:38:10 > 0:38:13People received information from the radio,
0:38:13 > 0:38:16which, in this city of musicians,
0:38:16 > 0:38:18was reduced to broadcasting
0:38:18 > 0:38:22the sound of a ticking metronome to reassure people that
0:38:22 > 0:38:25despite everything Leningrad was still alive.
0:38:27 > 0:38:29Shostakovich, in the besieged city,
0:38:29 > 0:38:32was composing and also working as a fireman.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39It was under these extraordinary circumstances
0:38:39 > 0:38:42that Shostakovich wrote his Leningrad Symphony
0:38:42 > 0:38:47which was performed here in the city in August 1942.
0:38:52 > 0:38:54Propaganda aside, it was an act of heroism
0:38:54 > 0:38:56with an orchestra assembled
0:38:56 > 0:38:59by bringing musicians back from the front line,
0:38:59 > 0:39:01granted extra rations,
0:39:01 > 0:39:04and the music defiantly relayed on speakers in the street.
0:39:07 > 0:39:13And into that world tiptoes this distant strange little drum.
0:39:18 > 0:39:23'Taking my cue from Mravinsky, Shostakovich's favourite conductor,
0:39:23 > 0:39:27'it's a side drum without snares, not the sound of a military drum.'
0:39:27 > 0:39:32It's easier for it to be very quiet if it's played without the snare
0:39:32 > 0:39:35and it sounds more ominous and ghostly.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46And on top of this endlessly repeating little drum,
0:39:46 > 0:39:51the orchestra one by one join in and play this silly little tune.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01IN DIALECT
0:40:53 > 0:40:57'This silly little tune goes on and on and gets nearer and nearer.'
0:40:57 > 0:41:03And changes from being trivial into something so threatening
0:41:03 > 0:41:06and overpowering and vulgar and hard,
0:41:06 > 0:41:11that one wonders who is being referred to.
0:41:31 > 0:41:37At the climax of this march, not content with his large orchestra,
0:41:37 > 0:41:40He adds ten extra brass players just to roar,
0:41:40 > 0:41:43'to scream in repetition,
0:41:43 > 0:41:48'in fierce, uncompromising violence.'
0:42:01 > 0:42:05Unusually, Shostakovich wrote a programme note for this symphony
0:42:05 > 0:42:07saying he didn't want to write battle music,
0:42:07 > 0:42:11but to depict the ominous force of war.
0:42:14 > 0:42:19Nevertheless debate is raised whether the unstoppable march
0:42:19 > 0:42:22represents the Nazi invader or an evil closer to home.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28IN DIALECT
0:43:03 > 0:43:07'Throughout his life, however weak he was physically,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10'his will to compose what he wanted to compose never left him.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14'On the one hand, he had to speak to his people
0:43:14 > 0:43:17'and make sure he said something they would be moved by.
0:43:17 > 0:43:18'But on the other hand,
0:43:18 > 0:43:20'he had to do it without offending too much,
0:43:20 > 0:43:22'the apparatchiks, the KGB,
0:43:22 > 0:43:25'the cultural bureau that surrounded them all.
0:43:25 > 0:43:29'When people would ask, "What's it about, we didn't quite understand?"'
0:43:29 > 0:43:32He would say, "Oh, just listen, you'll hear it",
0:43:32 > 0:43:35or "For those who can hear, I think it's clear."
0:43:48 > 0:43:50Whatever Shostakovich's intention,
0:43:50 > 0:43:53the Leningrad Symphony had an astonishing impact,
0:43:53 > 0:43:55and not just in Russia.
0:43:55 > 0:43:58As war raged on, the Soviets microfilmed the score
0:43:58 > 0:44:00and sent it via Tehran and an American naval ship
0:44:00 > 0:44:02to the US, their ally.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06It was conducted by Toscanini at Radio City in New York,
0:44:06 > 0:44:10the first of 60 performances in America in 1942.
0:44:10 > 0:44:13It was just the sort of public gesture the allies wanted.
0:44:16 > 0:44:21This is a presentation for soldiers at a desert airbase in California.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24ARCHIVE VOICEOVER: 'Guest of honour is Madame Ivy Litvinoff,
0:44:24 > 0:44:28'wife of the Russian ambassador to the United States.'
0:44:28 > 0:44:30CHEERING
0:44:30 > 0:44:35I understand that you give me this wonderful welcome
0:44:35 > 0:44:38because you greet the brave and gallant men and women
0:44:38 > 0:44:42and soldiers of the Red Army in the Soviet Union.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47'Also on hand is Edward G Robinson.'
0:44:47 > 0:44:51Now this music was written by a soldier, a Russian soldier,
0:44:51 > 0:44:54one who fought the Siege of Leningrad.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57And Dmitri Shostakovich is still in it.
0:44:57 > 0:45:01CHEERING
0:45:01 > 0:45:04ANNOUNCEMENTS IN RUSSIAN
0:45:10 > 0:45:13This is the annual veterans parade
0:45:13 > 0:45:16along Nevsky Prospekt in St Petersburg,
0:45:16 > 0:45:18when people gather to remember and celebrate
0:45:18 > 0:45:22the heroism and sacrifice of those who died in the Second World War.
0:45:22 > 0:45:24ANNOUNCEMENTS IN RUSSIAN
0:45:31 > 0:45:34Shostakovich's Leningrad symphony ended, of course,
0:45:34 > 0:45:39with a triumphant finale depicting the victory of the people of Russia
0:45:39 > 0:45:42in the great patriotic war.
0:45:45 > 0:45:50"As at no time before, I realised the public significance of my work",
0:45:50 > 0:45:54wrote Shostakovich, "and my work was not in vain.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56"The music helped the struggle for justice."
0:46:03 > 0:46:07PEOPLE CHANT: Leningrad!
0:46:16 > 0:46:20In the US, America's leading composer, Aaron Copland,
0:46:20 > 0:46:24had been impressed by the mass appeal of the Leningrad Symphony,
0:46:24 > 0:46:29and wrote a symphony of his own to celebrate the Allied victory.
0:46:45 > 0:46:46Copland's Third Symphony
0:46:46 > 0:46:48incorporates his Fanfare For The Common Man
0:46:48 > 0:46:50which had been commissioned
0:46:50 > 0:46:52when America first became involved in the war.
0:47:19 > 0:47:24Here is the first page of Copland's
0:47:24 > 0:47:27Fanfare For The Common Man.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31Even if you can't read music you see there aren't very many notes
0:47:31 > 0:47:32on the page at all.
0:47:32 > 0:47:37And the thing that I love about it is this real juxtaposition,
0:47:37 > 0:47:41kind of magic, between the austerity on the one hand
0:47:41 > 0:47:44and the magnificence of the music.
0:48:04 > 0:48:07Why the title? Why Fanfare For The Common Man?
0:48:07 > 0:48:09'Fanfare For The Common Man
0:48:09 > 0:48:14'is so reflective of his innate egalitarianism.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16'He really felt it was the foot soldiers
0:48:16 > 0:48:20'that were going to be carrying the burden of the war.'
0:48:35 > 0:48:38This is the house outside New York that Copland bought in 1960
0:48:38 > 0:48:41and where he spent the last 30 years of his life.
0:48:41 > 0:48:42He was a man who lived very frugally
0:48:42 > 0:48:44and he spent much of his life
0:48:44 > 0:48:47moving from apartment to apartment back in the big city.
0:48:47 > 0:48:50But he was also someone who appreciated the serenity,
0:48:50 > 0:48:54isolation and closeness to nature that he found here.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58As comfortable as this house is,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02it's very unassuming and unpretentious.
0:49:02 > 0:49:04It's completely unostentatious.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06It has certain modernist touches,
0:49:06 > 0:49:12kind of frugal, simple, practical.
0:49:12 > 0:49:15We have his work desk off to the side which is just
0:49:15 > 0:49:19wide plank barn wood made by a local farmer.
0:49:19 > 0:49:21And that's where Copland worked.
0:49:21 > 0:49:23He was looking for simplicity and practicality
0:49:23 > 0:49:25and I think I this was it.
0:49:31 > 0:49:33Copland's Third Symphony has become
0:49:33 > 0:49:35the most performed of all American symphonies.
0:49:35 > 0:49:40Perhaps because, like his ballets Appalachian Spring and Rodeo,
0:49:40 > 0:49:42it has a distinctly American sound.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58'It's something Copland really started out to do,'
0:49:58 > 0:50:02quite intentionally, back in the mid-1920s,
0:50:02 > 0:50:05when he felt that there was no such thing
0:50:05 > 0:50:09as a recognisably American musical idiom.
0:50:15 > 0:50:21There is something very open and spare about his textures.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25His chords seem to have a lot of air in them...
0:50:28 > 0:50:34..which does convey something of the size and scope of the country.
0:50:43 > 0:50:46'I often feel that last movement'
0:50:46 > 0:50:49is really about not just the landscape,
0:50:49 > 0:50:51but what you build on the landscape.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55It's like building a frontier town.
0:50:55 > 0:50:56Like Once Upon A Time In The West.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59It's what you build on the landscape that matters.
0:51:10 > 0:51:12And it's also about democracy,
0:51:12 > 0:51:17it's the old Dvorak idea of bringing the symphony to the common man.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20So it's not for nothing that this Fanfare,
0:51:20 > 0:51:22which has this ruggedness about it,
0:51:22 > 0:51:25should be built into the last movement.
0:51:35 > 0:51:41'He translated this notion of egalitarianism into his art'
0:51:41 > 0:51:46by consciously trying to reach a wider audience
0:51:46 > 0:51:49with works that might be more popular on the one hand,
0:51:49 > 0:51:55more accessible on the one hand, but on the other would still allow him
0:51:55 > 0:51:58to do the kinds of things he wanted to do artistically.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28This is the monument to the Defenders of Leningrad
0:52:28 > 0:52:31in Victory Square in St Petersburg.
0:52:31 > 0:52:33Of course, it was in Soviet Russia
0:52:33 > 0:52:37that a big victory symphony was expected, indeed required.
0:52:37 > 0:52:38Many people awaited Shostakovich's
0:52:38 > 0:52:41Ninth Symphony with eager anticipation
0:52:41 > 0:52:44and with the fearsome precedent of Beethoven's 9th in their minds,
0:52:44 > 0:52:45they must have been looking
0:52:45 > 0:52:48for something equally ground-breaking and heroic.
0:52:55 > 0:52:58But Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony
0:52:58 > 0:53:01wasn't what the authorities wanted at all.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12IN DIALECT
0:54:10 > 0:54:15It was part of Shostakovich's personality, I get the feeling,
0:54:15 > 0:54:18that he was a clown for his people.
0:54:18 > 0:54:22Or that he was the person who could open up truths
0:54:22 > 0:54:24like the fool in King Lear.
0:54:24 > 0:54:30That he saw himself in a way, crying and joking at the same time.
0:54:32 > 0:54:36Now the bassoon is the instrument, better than any other,
0:54:36 > 0:54:39that can express satire and pathos.
0:54:41 > 0:54:46No other wind instrument has the ability to change so quickly.
0:54:51 > 0:54:57'Now what this says or speaks, I can't possibly say,
0:54:57 > 0:55:02'but I know that it is keening, it is crying out.'
0:55:08 > 0:55:10And when this has been exhausted and said,
0:55:10 > 0:55:16there is a moment of suspension and we suddenly start the last movement.
0:55:24 > 0:55:25It's in a completely different mood,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28in a completely different tempo, as if to say,
0:55:28 > 0:55:31"I was only joking. Actually, everything's fine!"
0:55:34 > 0:55:37And the sardonic, ironic character of the bassoon little tune,
0:55:37 > 0:55:39which seems so trivial and so like
0:55:39 > 0:55:43trying to banish all the tragedy that we've just shared,
0:55:43 > 0:55:44is very remarkable.
0:55:49 > 0:55:54And of course it's nothing like the spectacular, grandiose finale
0:55:54 > 0:55:55of Beethoven's Ninth.
0:56:00 > 0:56:04He did something quite different which was to really go back to Haydn.
0:56:04 > 0:56:08He wanted to write something that is seemingly light-hearted,
0:56:08 > 0:56:10but really very tragic underneath.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14And what was he trying to say both to his audience and the authorities?
0:56:14 > 0:56:15I think it's in a way a goodbye
0:56:15 > 0:56:19to the great musical symphonic tradition in Germany
0:56:19 > 0:56:22and the feeling that this has now come to an end.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40At the end of the Second World War,
0:56:40 > 0:56:42Germany, the country which had seen itself as the guardian
0:56:42 > 0:56:45of the symphonic tradition, was in ruins.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51And here was Shostakovich looking back at it in a sardonic farewell.
0:56:51 > 0:56:54Certainly the war is virtually the last event
0:56:54 > 0:56:58that seems to have demanded a symphonic response.
0:56:59 > 0:57:03It was here, in the heart of the old imperial city of Vienna,
0:57:03 > 0:57:05that the notion of a cycle of symphonies,
0:57:05 > 0:57:09often ending with that fateful number 9, was born.
0:57:09 > 0:57:11But after the Second World War, Vienna,
0:57:11 > 0:57:15like Berlin, was divided into four zones of military occupation.
0:57:15 > 0:57:17This is the memorial in the city to the Red Army
0:57:17 > 0:57:19and this perhaps foreshadows
0:57:19 > 0:57:22the subsequent democratisation of music
0:57:22 > 0:57:26and its diversification into many new forms.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34Over 250 years, we've made an incredible journey,
0:57:34 > 0:57:36from small groups of musicians
0:57:36 > 0:57:39in the palaces of princes to orchestras more than 100 strong,
0:57:39 > 0:57:42through works that are both personal and public.
0:57:46 > 0:57:51And the symphony has become to music what Shakespeare is to literature,
0:57:51 > 0:57:53a cultural monument
0:57:53 > 0:57:56that is continually redeveloped through new interpretations.
0:57:56 > 0:58:01It still has the power to enchant, challenge, move me,
0:58:01 > 0:58:07and, in the 21st century, a larger and wider audience than ever before.
0:58:14 > 0:58:18To go deeper into the music and unravel the secrets of the symphony,
0:58:18 > 0:58:22follow the links to the Open University at bbc.co.uk/symphony.
0:58:47 > 0:58:50Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:50 > 0:58:53E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk