Ok, so it’s been about half a year with no blog post, so maybe it’s time for an update? A lot of catching up to do, but also not really.

What I actually want to write about is the symphony assignment I’ve given myself. At the tail end of December, D read an article about more creative new year resolutions — not “creative” in the sense that you pick up an arts & crafts hobby, but in the sense that they’re not the typical “eat healthier, exercise more” type of resolutions. One of the examples was actually quitting your gym membership (particularly if you don’t go very often). Another was to stop weighing/measuring yourself.

These were all suggestions from different people who implemented these with great success in the past. Another suggestion was to select a different symphony every week, and listen to it over and over again in that week. Since some of the other suggestions weren’t really of any relevance to me (never joined a gym before, don’t measure myself frequently enough for that to be an issue), this was the one that interested me the most.

Anyway, the point of this exercise is to discover things about symphonies that you might know but not really know. The person who suggested it said that when they did it, they noticed something new with each listen. It was really painted as some marvellous process of discovery and appreciation.

For me, with minimal music background (by which I’m referring to music theory and training), I expected it to be a bit more difficult, so I’m allowing myself several weeks with each symphony. I’m also not expecting that I’ll notice that much about each one, but hoping to at least glean something from the experience. 

And since I was quite excited to get started, I didn’t wait until January to begin. 

But I also had to figure out how I was going to access all the symphonies I was going to listen to. In the last several years, I’ve only listened to the radio (ABC Classic) and not used any streaming services or bought albums (except maybe one from The Script). I couldn’t possibly rely on the radio for this assignment, and I was unsure about buying each album, so that left streaming. After a bit of research, D found a site called Presto that has an extensive range of classical music that you can stream and purchase. You get a free one-month trial, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The really good thing about using Presto is that they really emphasise “paying rights holders per second of listening”, so that your money actually goes to the creators of the music you’re listening to, and it’s calculated fairly. More info here.

So, anyway, the next thing to do was choose which symphony to listen to first. I figured I should start with something I know I will enjoy, because that would probably increase my chances of continuing this through 2025 and beyond. In the end, the decision was actually reasonably easy: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 (also known as the Organ Symphony)

I have no doubt this was the best choice. From listening to the radio, I was already quite familiar with the last movement, but they never seem to play any other part of the symphony. Now, after about four weeks of repeated listening (although admittedly not very frequent listening — maybe once or twice a day, but not necessarily every day) of different renditions by various orchestras, I finally know the symphony in its entirety.

To me, the Organ Symphony is joyously triumphant and triumphantly joyous. In the accompanying booklet from one of the albums I listened to, it was said that Saint-Saëns believed this was his greatest work, and he could not possibly compose a better symphony. The booklet also pointed out that the symphony uses all parts of the orchestra quite extensively, which is something I really enjoyed about listening to it. It will be interesting to see how other symphonies compare in this regard.