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
A Sea Symphony choral music in Britain during the first half of the 20th century. The work is sometimes referred to as the Symphony No. 1. From 1903 to 1909, Ralph Vaughan Williams worked intermittently on a series of songs for chorus and orchestra that were to become his most lengthy project to date and his first true symphony. Originally titled "The Ocean", "A Sea Symphony" was first performed in 1910 at the Leeds Festival on the composer's 38th birthday. This is generally cited as his first large-scale work; although "Grove" lists some 16 other orchestral works composed by Vaughan Williams before he