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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
Paradoxes Abound in Arnold's music, and while in most instances they need not be understood in order to appreciate the music (for it is, as Hugo Cole has suggested, ‘so clear, so self-sufficient, so much to be enjoyed for its own sake’), in terms of the Symphony the idea deserves further consideration. The basic paradox is this: that the composer's particularily prolific form of eclecticism is at odds with the conceptual and technical demands of symphonic form. In his well-considered definition of the Symphony, Robert Simpson states that it is a ‘profoundly inclusive’ form, one in which all the diverse elements of music are brought together to make an organic and dynamic whole. It is active in all possible ways; ‘no evasions are tolerable in the attempt to achieve the highest state or organization of which music is capable’. Eclecticism, then, would appear first to present problems of technical integration, and second to give an overly diffuse aural result.
1 Cole, Hugo: ‘Malcolm Arnold at 60’. Music and Musicians, 10 1981, p. 9Google Scholar.
2 The term ‘eclecticism’ is here given a broader meaning than is usual: not only is it taken to mean styles borrowed from other composers and types of music, but styles whose original source is unclear (including synthetic styles of Arnold's own) yet which still sound ‘introduced’ in relation to the listener's stylistic expectations.
3 Simpson, Robert (ed.): The Symphony, Vol. 2, Harmondsworth 1967, p. 8Google Scholar.
4 Simpson, Robert (ed.): The Symphony, Vol. 1, Harmondsworth 1966, p. 14Google Scholar.
5 Mitchell, Donald: The Musical Times, 1954, p. 382Google Scholar.
6 Between letters K and O in the score.
7 Mitchell, Donald: The Musical Times, 1954, p. 382Google Scholar.
8 The ‘trio’ section being between letters H and N.
9 Quotation from the programme notes to the first radio broadcast of the work, original source unknown.