Sinfonia - Symphony With An Alternative Scope

Symphony With An Alternative Scope

Later sinfonia would occasionally be used as an alternative name for a symphony, from the Romantic era on. Often, but not always, the title "sinfonia" is used when the work is seen as, or intended to be, lighter, shorter, or more Italianate or Baroquish in character than a full-blown (romantic) symphony (with its dominantly Germanic pedigree).

Examples of such "sinfonias" composed after the classical era include:

• Felix Mendelssohn's twelve early symphonies, most of them string symphonies in three movements and all of them composed before his five other more elaborate symphonies, are sometimes called "sinfonias", to distinguish them from the Symphonies 1 to 5 that were published during - or shortly after - the composer's lifetime. The Italian is a composition of the latter series, so always called a "symphony". On the other hand Mendelssohn used the term sinfonia in the "overture" meaning for the first movement of his Lobgesang symphony. This can be seen as one of the many Bach reminiscences Mendelssohn inserts in his music: these references to the old master were especially thick in this "symphony-cantata", as it was to be premiered in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.
• Vincent d'Indy wrote a Sinfonia brevis de bello Gallico that is: "Brief sinfonia of the War in Gaul".
• Richard Strauss chose the name Sinfonia Domestica ("Domestic Symphony") for a full scale symphony he composed 1902–1903. Maybe this symphony shows a somewhat sunnier side than most of his other orchestral compositions - but then large parts of the work also portray domestic tiffs and other tensions, ending in an elaborate fugue restoring coherence in the household.
• Igor Stravinsky titled the first movement of his 1923 Octet "Sinfonia".
• Benjamin Britten wrote a Sinfonia da Requiem in 1941. Here Sinfonia is rather an allusion to seriousness or solemnity, than to any kind of lightness.
• Leon Orthel wrote also in 1941 a 'Piccola Sinfonia'. The work is in one mouvement, although it has 6 sections.