Symphony No. 2 is a

symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

in three connected movements for orchestra by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The piece was commissioned by the Houston Symphony and completed July 15, 1994. The work premiered later that year and is dedicated to then Houston Symphony director Christoph Eschenbach. Rouse, Christopher
Symphony No. 2: Program Note by the Composer
1994. Retrieved March 4, 2015.

Composition

The symphony has a duration of approximately 25 minutes and is composed in three connected movements: #Allegro #Adagio #Allegro Rouse intended the work as a tribute to the music of composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann. Though Rouse conceived the piece concurrently with his Symphony No. 1 in the summer of 1984, he took a full decade to complete the work. The second movement, Adagio, is dedicated to Rouse's friend and fellow composer Stephen Albert, who had died December 27, 1992.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...

, two flutes, two oboes,

English horn The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially an alto ...

, two

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

, three

bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...

s, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba,

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

, timpani (two players), percussion (three players), and

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

( violins I & II, violas, violoncellos, and double basses).

Reception

Stephen Wigler of '' The Baltimore Sun'' praised the symphony as "tightly constructed and fun to listen to" and added, "It was the finale, with its pile-up of ear-splitting sonorities so typical of this composer, that occasioned the catcalls from the audience. But its relentless energy was invigorating and its coda — an outburst of savage drumming — splendidly inventive." Steve Metcalf of the ''

Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven ...

'' also lauded the work, saying, "The ideas are crisp and unforced, the orchestration brilliant. It's a piece of such physical urgency that a listener finds himself literally sitting up a little straighter in response to its restless opening bars." David Gutman of ''

Gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

'' also gave the work modest praise.

References

{{Authority control 2 1994 compositions Rouse 2 Music commissioned by the Houston Symphony