Viennese Symphony in G

The Viennese Symphony was an idea I came up with in 1982, when I was a freshman composition student. I combined the concept of a symphony starting on a dominant chord (like Beethoven did in his first symphony) and added to it a simple minuet I had composed the previous fall. Soon I had extensive sketches for all four movements, and actually started to score it a couple of times, but was defeated by the magnitude of the task. I finally went back and completed it in 2004.

The symphony is in a fairly strict Viennese Classical style, but I made no concessions for instrumental limitations (for instance, it requires valved horns and trumpets, which didn't exist in the Viennese Classical period). The harmonies are perhaps a little more daring than Mozart or Haydn might have used. It's closer to Schubert in this respect, but the structure is more reminiscent of Mozart. The fourth movement is a somewhat light Presto rather than the heavy Grand Finale of Beethoven.

  1. First Movement, Allegro
  2. Second Movement, Andante
  3. Third Movement, Minuet
  4. Fourth Movement, Presto