Symphony No. 2, Op. 30 "Romantic"

The symphony unfolds in three connected movements rather than the usual four, so the orchestra plays without a long pause until the very end.

I. Adagio, Allegro moderato. A slow, hushed opening in the low strings and horn grows into the movement's main theme, a rising melodic idea that will return throughout the whole symphony. The tempo then quickens, and the strings and brass build the idea into a full-throated climax before the music settles back down.

II. Andante con tenerezza. A gentler middle movement built around a long, songlike oboe melody, later taken up by the strings. The mood stays intimate and unhurried, with the orchestra used more as a chamber ensemble than as a mass of sound.

III. Allegro. The finale opens with energy and drive, working through fragments of earlier material before the music broadens. Listen for the return of the very opening theme from the first movement, now played by the full brass section at full volume, a moment many listeners recognize even on a first hearing. The symphony ends not quietly but with this theme blazing out as its final statement.

Howard Hanson wrote his Second Symphony in 1930 on a commission from Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra to mark the orchestra's fiftieth anniversary season. Hanson, who was then director of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, subtitled the work "Romantic" to signal his intent to write unabashedly lyrical, emotionally direct music at a time when much modern composition favored dissonance and complexity. The Boston Symphony gave the premiere in November 1930 under Koussevitzky. The symphony was well received and quickly became one of the most frequently performed American symphonies, championed by conductors across the country. Its final theme later reached a wide popular audience when it was used, without Hanson's involvement in the decision, in the soundtrack of the 1979 film "Alien."