What is The Gothic?

Symphony No.1 in D minor - The Gothic, by Havergal Brian          

The Gothic Symphony is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records 1979, the largest symphony ever written. 

The composer was Stoke-on-Trent born, Havergal Brian (1876-1972), a contemporary of Granville Bantock, Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton.

The symphony is in two parts. The first is purely orchestral, while the second involves multiple choirs in a setting of the Latin hymn 'Te Deum.'

William Havergal Brian, born in Dresden, Stoke-on-Trent, worked on the symphony for eight years, mainly from his home near Brighton, England, completing it in 1927.  He submitted it to the Columbia Gramophone Competition in 1928, but it lost the top prize to Kurt Atterberg's Sixth Symphony.

The full score was published by Cranz in 1932 and re-printed in 1976 by United Music Publishing Limited.

In May 1978 members of the North Staffs Symphony Orchestra formed the core of the ad hoc 'Stoke Gothic Symphony Orchestra'  in the full performance of the symphony which included over 800 performers.

PART 1

The first movement is in extended sonata form, with a lively figure in D minor as the first theme, and a calm violin melody in D flat major as the second theme. Following the development section, there is no formal recapitulation, but rather a final coda.

The second movement is a solemn march, almost funerary in character.

The third movement is built up from a Brucknerian recurring ostinato, introduced by the horn section, and it leads up to a xylophone cadenza culminating in a march that brings the tonality back to the key of D minor.

Part I ends with a D major chord.

PART 2

Part II of the Gothic is notable for its use of Renaissance polyphony, polytonality, dissonance and medieval compositional techniques. The orchestra is expanded and the choirs and brass bands are brought in.

In the three movements of Part II, the text of the Te Deum is treated sometimes tenderly, sometimes raucously, sometimes homophonically, sometimes polyphonically and with many other creative approaches.

At the end, the choir closes the work softly in the key of E major.


Required Performers           

The Gothic Symphony lasts just under two hours and requires extravagant forces

Strings
20 first violins, 20 second violins, 16 violas, 14 cellos, 12 double basses, 2 harps

Woodwind
2 piccolos, 6 flutes, 1 alto flute, 6 oboes, 1 oboe d'amore,  1 bass oboe, 2 cors anglais, clarinet in E-flat, 5 clarinets in B-flat,  1 2nd E-flat clarinet, 2 basset horns, 2 bass clarinets in B-flat, contrabass clarinet in B-flat, 3 bassoons, 2 contrabassoons

Orchestral brass
8 horns in F, 8 trumpets,  2 cornets in E-flat, 1 bass trumpet, 3 tenor trombones, bass trombone, 1 2nd contrabass trombone, contrabass trombone, 2 euphoniums, 2 tubas

Percussion
2 sets of timpani, 2 bass drums, 3 snare drums, African long drum, 2 tambourines, 2 triangles, 6 pairs of large cymbals, gong, bird scare, thunder machine, (not thunder sheet) small chains, xylophone, glockenspiel, tubular bells, chimes in E-flat

Keyboards
celesta, organ

Voices
solo quartet - soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, 4 mixed choirs, children's choir

Four offstage brass bands
used in the fifth and sixth movements - comprising: 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 tenor trombones, 2 tubas, 1 set of timpani


The written word - all about The Gothic          

Music and Meaning by Malcolm MacDonald 1978
"Havergal Brian’s symphony The Gothic (1919-1927) is that strangest and most infrequently encountered kind of masterpiece: a work which sets out to be one thing but which turns, against its creator’s will, into something very different in the process of creation." more here>

Havergal Brian’s  Gothic Symphony  - Two studies
Harold Truscott, Paul Rapoport, Havergal Brian
with ‘How the Gothic Symphony came to be written’ by Havergal Brian  more here>