Choral symphony simply an attempt at grandiose effect, though the composer's use of such forces earned the work the subtitle "Symphony of a Thousand" from his press agent (a name still applied to the symphony). Like Stravinsky, Mahler makes extensive and extended use of counterpoint, especially in the first part, "Veni Creator Spiritus". Throughout this section, according to music writer Michael Kennedy, Mahler displays considerable mastery in manipulating multiple independent melodic voices. Musicologist Deryck Cooke adds that Mahler handles his huge forces "with extraordinary clarity". Vaughan Williams also insisted on a balance between words and music in "A Sea Symphony", writing in
Ellora Symphony Ellora Symphony Yasushi Akutagawa's Ellora Symphony was composed in 1958 after a visit to the Ellora Caves in Aurangabad, India. One of several Japanese primitivistic symphonies composed in the 1950s, including Akira Ifukube's Sinfonia Tapkaara and Kan Ishii's Sinfonia Ainu, it is representative of Akutagawa's most adventurous period, when he associated Toru Takemitsu and Toshiro Mayuzumi and embraced avant-garde music. Instead of the traditional multi-movement layout, which Akutagawa had used in his Shostakovichian Prima Sinfonia three years earlier, the Ellora Symphony is structured in fifteen sequences: eight caressing "feminine" fragments marked Adagio or Andante and seven aggressive "masculine" ones marked