Symphony instruments, 19th century symphonies were gradually augmented with more string players and more wind parts, so that the orchestra grew substantially in sheer numbers, as concert halls likewise grew. At the beginning of the 20th century, Gustav Mahler wrote long, large-scale symphonies. His Eighth Symphony, for example, was composed in 1906 and is nicknamed the "Symphony of a Thousand" because of the large number of voices required to perform the work. Additionally, his Third Symphony is one of the longest regularly performed symphonies at around 100 minutes in length for most performances. The 20th century also saw further diversification 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