The Symphony in G minor was Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo

Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...

’s final original orchestral composition. It was composed in 1885-1886. (There were two earlier symphonies composed by Lalo, believed destroyed). It was premiered on 7 February 1887 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 at the Concerts Lamoureux under Charles Lamoureux

Charles Lamoureux

Charles Lamoureux was a French conductor and violinist.He was born in Bordeaux, where his father owned a café. He studied the violin with Narcisse Girard at the Paris Conservatoire, taking a premier prix in 1854. He was subsequently engaged as a violinist at the Opéra and later joined the Société...

.

It is a classically constructed romantic symphony with the composer’s Latin roots present in the melodies and orchestration. There are four movements with 28 minutes duration:

• I. Andante - Allegro non troppo
• II. Vivace
• III. Adagio
• IV. Allegro

Instrumentation is two flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, two oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, two clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s, two bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s, four horns, two trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s, three trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

s, tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

, timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

 and string

String section

The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...

s. The full score was published by G. Hartmann in 1888, and brought out as a Heugel et Cie imprint in 1900 as plate 1820 (Heugel having purchased Hartmann in 1891). Xavier Leroux

Xavier Leroux

Xavier Henry Napoleón Leroux was a French composer.Leroux was the son of a military bandleader. He studied at the Paris Conservatory under Jules Massenet and Théodore Dubois, and won the Prix de Rome in 1885 with the cantata Endymion...

 also made a four hand piano version, published by Heugel as plate 1795.

In a 7 March 1887 letter responding for information on the symphony to author and Wagner enthusiast Adolphe Jullien, Lalo stated his belief in pure music over descriptive music:

“It appears that you personally wish to have some information regarding the thought which predominates in my symphony. Alas, I am going to scandalize you! I had no literary thought in the sense that you mean. When I write a composition to words, I become a slave to what convention terms the verities of musical expression, according to a given text. But when I write music without a literary text, I have before and about me only the domain of sounds, melodic and harmonic. For a musician, this immense field possesses in itself, aside from all literature, its poems and its dramas. As to my Symphony, I have presented the master phrase in a brief introduction, as you have been kind enough to remark; it predominates in the first movement, and I recall it in the others whenever my poetic or dramatic musical intentions (do not laugh!) make its intervention seem necessary to me”.

Lalo’s symphony was called one of the "happiest" of French symphonies in a 1925 article in The Musical Quarterly

The Musical Quarterly

The Musical Quarterly is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928...

. Lalo’s is from the same period that produced three other notable French symphonies: Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

 Symphony No. 3 "Organ Symphony"

Symphony No. 3 (Saint-Saëns)

The Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, was completed by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1886 at what was probably the artistic zenith of his career. It is also popularly known as the "Organ Symphony", even though it is not a true symphony for organ, but simply an orchestral symphony where two sections out...

, d'Indy’s

Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...

 Symphony on a French Mountain Air, and Franck’s

César Franck

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

 Symphony in D minor

Symphony in D minor (Franck)

The Symphony in D minor is the most famous orchestral work and the only symphony written by the 19th-century Belgian composer César Franck. After two years of work, the symphony was completed 22 August 1888. It was premiered at the Paris Conservatory on 17 February 1889 under the direction of ...

. Lalo's work was neglected until Thomas Beecham

Thomas Beecham

Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...

 "discovered" it and conducted it regularly. In the United States, only the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

 amongst major symphony orchestras performed the work up to 1970 (that sole performance being in 1931).

A 1961 review of the first major recording (Beecham’s made in 1959 at the Salle Wagram in Paris) disparaged the composition as "not very rewarding. Both matter and manner are dull and undistinguished, without the sparkle and melodic charm of the popular Symphonie Espagnole

Symphonie Espagnole

The Symphonie espagnole in D minor, Op. 21, is a work for violin and orchestra by Édouard Lalo.-History:The work was written in 1874 for violinist Pablo de Sarasate, and premiered in Paris in February 1875....

". A 1976 review of Antonio de Almeida

Antonio de Almeida (conductor)

Antonio de Almeida was a French conductor and musicologist of Portuguese-American descent.He was born Antonio Jacques de Almeida in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris....

’s recording suggests that "the cyclic theme does bear an unfortunately close resemblance to the opening of the Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

 B-flat Piano Concerto

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Brahms)

The Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83 by Johannes Brahms is a composition for solo piano with orchestral accompaniment. It is separated by a gap of 22 years from the composer's first piano concerto. Brahms began work on the piece in 1878 and completed it in 1881 while in Pressbaum near...

, in a way that Lalo surely did not intend". This review finds the second movement the most cohesive of the four and "wonderfully scored", suggesting Bizet's

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...

 Symphony in C

Symphony in C (Bizet)

The Symphony in C is an early work by the French composer Georges Bizet. According to Grove's Dictionary, the symphony "reveals an extraordinarily accomplished talent for an 17-year-old student, in melodic invention, thematic handling and orchestration." Bizet started work on the symphony on 29...

as the "closest equivalent".

Discography

Conductor	Orchestra	Recorded
George Sebastian	Orchestra des Concerts Colonne	1953?
Thomas Beecham	Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française	1959
Antonio de Almeida	National Opera Orchestra of Monte Carlo	1974?
Yondani Butt	Royal Philharmonic Orchestra	1989?
Giancarlo Andretta	Basler Sinfonie-Orchester	1994
Kees Bakels	Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra	2001