Deryk Barker wrote:

>>>Would you really consider Beethoven 9 cyclic? The themes from mvt 1-3 do
>>>reappear (briefly) at the beginning the finale, but only to be swept away
>>>and never referred to again.

Mikael Rasmusson wrote:

>>I expected this question.  He's linking the movements, but very briefly.
>>Berlioz did something similar in Harold in Italy.

Deryk Barker wrote:

>And of course the Symphonie Fantastique uses the 'idee fixe' in every
>movement, but I'm not sure that would be called cyclic either.

Yes,  in Harold in Italy he uses a virtually  unchanged "idee fixe" as
well as quoting from the earlier movements in the beginning of the final
movement.

>...  Bruckner would seem to be another prime candidate:  the coda of the
>4th (at least in the Haas edition) brings back the opening movement's main
>theme, the finale of the 5th uses the main theme of the 1st movement as one
>of its fugue subjects, the opening theme of the 6th reappears in the final
>coda,

Yes, in the 6th it seems like a rather desperate attempt to bring the
movement to a conclusion.

>Yet, I've never seen anyone call Bruckner symphonies cyclic.

It seems to be hard to find an operating definition of cyclic. it's getting
even harder if we start to discuss Liszt's Piano Concerti, Symphonies and
Symphonic Poems, because they are often constructed in a large one movement
sonata form, even if they are cast in several movements (like PC#1).
Actually, you can see them in both ways, and I guess that's the principle
Rachmaninoff based his first symphony on.

Mikael
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