(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Music open thread: Third Symphonies [1] ['Alonso Del Arte', 'Thom Hartmann', 'Chitown Kev', 'Black Kos', 'Belinda Ridgewood'] Date: 2026-05-19 Beethoven admired Napoleon Bonaparte, and was even going to dedicate a symphony to him. But when the supposed leader of free men crowned himself emperor, Beethoven was furious. And disappointed, cancelling the dedication of his Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major. Beethoven still kept up with the news about Napoleon Bonaparte, and later dedicated a piano sonata to Count Waldstein, who tried in vain to mount an Austrian opposition to the French invader. So the Third Symphony is named “Eroica,” it’s about heroism, and not about any hero in particular. Beethoven’s contemporaries criticized this symphony for its supposedly inordinate length. It runs 45 minutes, give or take a few minutes. I’m including a couple of much longer symphonies in this thread. My first choice of performance was with Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducting, but I’ve already posted that one here on Daily Kos. So maybe I save him for a different symphony. There’s something heroic about Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, the “Rhenish.” Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the New World Symphony gives a performance that is a little slower than I like, but his approach does bring something out of the music I don’t quite hear in the faster performances. Of the Third Symphonies in the key of E-flat major, Dvořák’s is probably the most chill. Mostly cheerful, always tuneful. Definitely deserves to be heard more often. I really wanted to include Michael Haydn’s Symphony No. 3 in G major, which is sometimes called “Divertimento,” but it’s a little too purposeful to be a divertimento or a serenade. Aside from the reference recording paired with an irrelevant painting for the video track, it’s not available on YouTube. Older brother Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 3 also happens to be in G major, and that one’s easier to find on YouTube. Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 3, “Camp Meeting,” is said to be in B-flat major. The first page of the score does show a key signature of two flats. And now I’m really regretting not including his first two symphonies in the two previous open threads. At the risk of sounding unsophisticated, I like his previous two symphonies much better. Depending on how you count these things, there are three or four different versions of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 in D minor. I don’t see that as a problem. Hear one version and then hear a different version and it’s a nice mixture of familiar music with a few surprises sprinkled in. The 1889 version is probably the least surprising version, though. I could have sworn that Gustav Mahler had a Guinness world record for the longest symphony ever, for his Symphony No. 3 in D minor, which runs 90 to 120 minutes. But maybe my memory failed me on this one, as the only world record that I can find for Mahler online is for his Second Symphony, the most expensive music manuscript sold at auction. Or maybe Mahler really did have that record but too many composers tried to game it. I could take one of my symphonies, which are about as long as Haydn’s early symphonies, and divide the metronome markings so as to multiply the duration to a suitable length. The Mahler Third is so long that in this performance by the hr-Sinfonieorchester conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada, there’s an actual intermission between the first and second movements. The only time Carl Nielsen used singers in one of his symphonies is in the slow movement of his Symphony No. 3, the “Espansiva.” Nielsen is still tonal. This symphony seems to begin in F major, but that’s not where it ends up. The open thread question: What is your favorite Third Symphony? Bonus question: Notice any pattern to the mentioned tonalities? E-flat major, G major, B-flat major, D minor, F major? [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/19/800021481/community/music-open-thread-third-symphonies/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/