I thought I'd just draw attention to my latest symphony as it's generally been well received to date in case there's anyone still here who reads this. No. 18 is among my longest but on the other hand is rather a departure from the somewhat post-romantic idiom of most of the more recent ones. Here my starting point was Bruckner's 6th symphony which is one of my absolute favourites and I wanted to try and capture something of the tunefulness but also slightly quirky and anarchic nature of what used to be the least performed of Bruckner's mature symphonies, though it seems to have had a revival of late. Indeed I pretty well quote him directly in the finale.
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I've listened to this work several times now and think it is one of David's most immediately attractive and appealing works, and well worth the investment in time. There are big Romantic gestures and tunes in every one of the four movements, but it is by no means a throwback to a 19th century style, and has many modern elements, including polyrhythms and harmonic progressions and transitions that are pretty far from Bruckner and are perhaps more reminiscent of Havergal Brian. Also quasi-Brianic are the frequent changes of texture and instrumentation, where the composer juxtaposes very dissimilar musical contexts against each other without any kind of bridge passage - although Bruckner also does this, including in his 6th, for dramatic effect. The scoring shows a lot of skill as well for its transparency. An excellent work, imho.
many thanks for your kind words Liz, which are especially meaningful as you have a strong knowledge of the relevant repertoire and it makes me think I must give Harvegal Brian another go as I didn't make so much headway the first time round (a good friend at university was President of the Harvegal Brian society which tried to promote some of the lesser known British tonal composers). The juxtaposition of dissimilar music elements against each other is indeed probably most influenced by Bruckner, though for the harmonic progressions, I am entirely to blame.