Symphonic

What it means

Symphonic means what belongs to the symphony or corresponds to its layout and effect. The symphony is the multi-movement large form for orchestra that took shape in the eighteenth century and became the most esteemed genre of instrumental music in the nineteenth. “Symphonic” therefore designates not only membership of this genre but also a particular way of composing and making music.

Musical use

Features counted as symphonic composing are the scale of the layout, thinking in wide tension arcs, and the working-out of few themes over long stretches. A symphonic movement builds itself up from its material, instead of stringing together details; motivic-thematic work is the preferred procedure for this. Added to this is an orchestral texture in which the instruments do not merely accompany but take part in the thematic events in changing roles.

The term is also used outside the symphony. One speaks of the symphonic poem, a usually single-movement orchestral work relating to an extra-musical model; Franz Liszt introduced the designation Symphonische Dichtung for his works of this kind, begun in 1848. One also speaks of symphonic wind-band music, when a large wind orchestra plays works of this ambition, and, in a figurative sense, of symphonic traits in chamber music or piano music, when these are conceived orchestrally. In rock music, symphonic rock is a strand of progressive rock that since the late 1960s has drawn on orchestras or orchestrally conceived arrangements; an early example is the Moody Blues' album Days of Future Passed (1967) with the London Festival Orchestra.

The expression is often used as a value judgement — in the sense of grand, serious, demanding. As a style designation it is therefore imprecise.

Performance practice

In symphonic music, think in long arcs: climaxes are prepared over many bars, and restraint at the right point is often more important than force. In the orchestra, listen to whichever voice is currently carrying the thematic material, and hold back if it is not yours. And get an overview of the score, even if you play only one part.