In classical music we refer to Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies, or
Schumann or Brahms’ Four, or the Nine of Bruckner or Mahler. To a lesser extent, the Seven of Sibelius
are invoked, or the Fifteen of Shostakovich, the Three of Rachmaninov, or the
Nine of Dvorak (though almost no one plays the first four). Then there are composers who despite writing
a good deal of symphonies, never composed a true “cycle” in the Romantic
sense. For many critics, a composer’s
symphonies need to have some kind of consistency or development which makes
them all of a piece, each one building on the other or reaching to some
immeasurable height. Beethoven’s Nine
are all great statements, even the early, Mozartian ones; this is certainly
true of Bruckner’s massive essays in symphonic form, as each one attempts to
take up the struggle where Beethoven’s Ninth left off. So what do we do with
someone like Prokofiev, who wrote seven magnificent, eccentric, erratic works
which often defy categorization and are almost never played (and rarely
recorded as a set). Can we approach his
symphonies are a cycle, though his approach to symphonic writing was haphazard
and often blatantly theatrical (as several works borrow from his stage
music)? Or even more to the point, does
a cycle have to consist of equally popular and lasting works, or can some have
almost no identity outside of the cycle itself? Here’s a quick look at Prokofiev’s seven—er, seven and a
half—symphonies and why they should be considered as a cycle in their own
right, as well as magnificent compositions individually.
