Symphony guide: Knussen's third symphony is only 15 minutes in length but it covers a massive musical and emotional spectrum

Liszt's Faust Symphony blows the bogus symphonic vs programme music debate out of the water

Farrenc’s symphony is as impressively energetic and structurally satisfying as any of Mendelssohn’s or Schumann’s symphonies – so does that make it “male” or “female”? Who cares? Enjoy getting to know this shamefully neglected work, writes Tom Service

Schubert's ninth symphony quotes Beethoven's own ninth. An homage - ironic or not - or his own statement of grand symphonic intent? Tom Service unpicks Schubert's great, and final symphony

This most convincing of post-tonal symphonies, can we hear Lutosławski's work as a protest piece? One thing is certain: the more you enter its symphonic labyrinth, the more you’ll discover.

Bruckner's "saucy" sixth is the symphony that disproves those lazy received opinions about his music

Mozart's 41st symphony - the last he composed - is full of postmodernism, palimpsests, and pure exhilaration

With its military bands, dazzling fanfares, and cinematic jump-cuts, Janáček's Sinfonietta is a unique symphonic proposition, sounding as new now as it did at its premiere in 1926.

This symphony might a reliable and over-familiar staple on concert programmes, but listen to it with fresh ears. It contains some of the darkest and deepest music in the 19th century, writes Tom Service

The 18-year-old composer's 29th symphony in A major might not have changed musical history, but it changed Tom Service's life.

César Franck's only symphony has all but disappeared from our concert halls. That's a great shame, says Tom Service. This is a remarkable and radical work.

Aaron Copland's monumental symphony gave post-war America what it needed - 'the Great American Symphony'.

JC Bach's symphonies aren't just important because of their influence on the young Mozart. They're signature works of the 18th century – and his G minor symphony, Op 6 no 6, is arguably the darkest and most dramatic he composed

Not only is Carter's Symphonia the largest orchestral work he ever composed - shortly before he turned 90 - but it's also one of the most significant symphonies of the late 20th century

Walton wanted to blow his contemporaries out of the symphonic water with his First, and with this volcanic eruption of dark, sensual power, he did just that.

Listen to Brahms's first symphony with fresh ears. It's a piece that took on history - and won.

Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony, an unprecedented 22-minute single-movement, contains all the drama of much longer pieces. But it’s also, some say, a symphonic scream.

It might not be called a symphony, but Adams's 1985 work is one of the late 20th century's most significant and sophisticated examples of the form

The Danish composer wanted his fourth symphony - 'The Inextinguishable' - to be a manifesto for what he thought of as the fundamental life-force of music, writes Tom Service

Don't consign Saint-Saëns's organ symphony to the orchestral glue-factory for knackered thoroughbreds. This was a cutting-edge - and gloriously tuneful - work.

• All articles in this series

Composer of 27 symphonies, Myaskovsky's tenth is - in his own words - 'as massive as if it were made of iron'. Tom Service gets his welding tools out

It's one of the shortest, weirdest, but most compelling symphonies of the 19th century, writes Tom Service

'I hope that even these idiots will find something in it to like', wrote the young composer of his Parisian audience. Calculated to please, Mozart's brilliantly wrought and supremely confident symphony is still delighting audiences nearly 250 years later.

Tchaikovsky's first symphony remodelled the form into a truly Russian style, staking out territory that his five other symphonies continued to explore

New sounds, forms and shapes define the Symphony of Psalms, a profoundly unironic expression of Stravinsky's unique approach to the psalms, the symphony and even his faith, writes Tom Service