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
Through-composed "Der Erlkönig" ("The Elf King"), in which the setting proceeds to a different musical arrangement for each new stanza and whenever the piece comes to each character, the character portrays its own voice register and tonality. Another example is Haydn's 'Farewell Symphony'. A good deal of Captain Beefheart's oeuvre is through-composed. No section of Ary Barroso's 1939 samba "Brazil" repeats; however, a second set of lyrics in Portuguese allows the melody to be sung through twice. The term "through-composed" is also applied to opera and musical theater to indicate a work that consists of an uninterrupted stream of music from