Symphonic Momentum and Post-tonal Dramas: Simpson's First Symphony

Extract

Robert Simpson died on 21 November 1997, leaving behind him an impressive body of works. At its core are 11 symphonies and 15 string quartets; also three concertos, two string quintets, sonatas, some choral music, even some much admired pieces for brass band. While a thoroughly individual, music-as-process modernism imbues all he wrote, the prevailing image of Simpson is that of the conservative classicist, clinging to the apparent certainties of antiquated forms and diatonic tonality – a view that begins to some extent with the composer himself. He is widely known for his influential writings on Beethoven, Nielsen, and Bruckner among others; writings that, along the way, fiercely and polemically extol the enduring virtues of symphonic composition, manifestly swimming against the tide of contemporary music of the mid-century. Simpson's symphonism was always ideologically opposed to the post-war trends towards total mechanization, as much as to the experiments with extreme irrationality and chance in the 1960s.