Symphony Edward Elgar, Gustav Mahler, Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen, Igor Stravinsky, Bohuslav Martinů, Roger Sessions, and Dmitri Shostakovich composed symphonies "extraordinary in scope, richness, originality, and urgency of expression" (Steinberg 1995, 404). One measure of the significance of a symphony is the degree to which it reflects conceptions of temporal form particular to the age in which it was created. Five composers from across the span of the 20th century who fulfil this measure are Sibelius, Stravinsky, Luciano Berio (in his Sinfonia, 1968–69), Elliott Carter (in his "Symphony of Three Orchestras", 1976), and Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (in "Symphony/Antiphony", 1980). Beginning in the
Symphony of the New World of the traditional concert world. The idea of the symphony has long been a hope of conductor Steinberg, who has over the past 25 years worked closely with the American Negro conductors, Dean Dixon and Everett Lee, as well as with innumerable nonwhite instrumentalists. In May 1964, Mr. Steinberg and a group of 13 prominent musicians organized a founding committee to create a symphony in which the principle of racial integration would find complete expression. It has taken almost one year for this artistic project to reach fruition. From its inception, the symphony has maintained a strict policy of accepting