New release of the Day - a Schubert stunner!

[Richard Barrett]

The thing with the Unfinished Symphony is that is how Schubert chose to leave it. If he had wanted to tack on bits of Rosamunde surely he would have done so ?

Chose? No, I don't think so. More likely: he was working on the symphony when the Rosamunde commission turned up, which he had to accept for financial reasons and finish in short order; the intended finale for the symphony seemed to fit the bill so the symphony was abandoned in its incomplete state, Schubert never had a chance to return to it, and none of it was performed until the 1860s. Since it's known that the Scherzo was indeed intended for this symphony and it's reasonably conjectured that the Rosamunde piece was also intended for it, why not put all these things together? Does it sound convincing as a complete symphony? To me, yes. And to me that's what matters.

[Barbirollians]

Schubert left many works incomplete. He also died young. Go figure.

He also wrote lots of complete works in his final year yet chose not to complete the Unfinished - perhaps we can also go figure that .

[Pabmusic]

It was two of the Bruckner Gang of Four. To recap on the work: Schubert completed a basic draft of the third and shortest movement, and orchestrated its opening, and Cohrs & Samale filled in the gaps. The fourth movement is the first entr'acte from Schubert's Rosamunde incidental music, without any changes as far as I know. (This movement is suspected to have been intended for the symphony, being in the same key, using the same instrumentation and having some motivic connections.)

I conducted something like this in December 2007 in Middlewich. I know Benjamin Gunnar-Cours and he helped with some minor alterations to the Rosamunde - particularly in inserting an exposition repeat and in ending it in the minor. I used my own completion of the Scherzo - the real issue with the Scherzo is that Schubert's short score ends at the Trio (except for a short passage of bare tune without accompaniment.

[Pabmusic]

He also wrote lots of complete works in his final year yet chose not to complete the Unfinished - perhaps we can also go figure that .

Several things happened at once.

(1) Schubert gave the two movements he had completed to an organization who might perform the symphony (in doing so, he lost the first page of the scherzo since it was on the back of the last page of the 2nd movement. This might well be explained as an attempt to get financial backing for the work.

(2) He must have realised that B minor was an awful key for natural horns and trumpets (since B crooks were not easily available) and that completing it would take a lot of time.

(3) He was diagnosed with syphylis a few weeks later, which presumably dampened his enthusiasm about completing the work.

Within a year he agreed to write the music for Rosamunde (a paid commission). He had three weeks to do it. Given this, his use of a large sonata-form movement as an entr'acte is surprising, more so when it's in the same 'difficult' key as the symphony, and scored for the same orchestra. It has been suggested that he had worked on a finale in the intervening period and, no performance of the symphony being forthcoming, he pressed it into service in Rosamunde. After Rosamunde there was no wish to write yet another finale for the symphony, so he didn't.

[jayne lee wilson]

Very useful comments Pabs, thank you. And what a difference that exposition repeat and the minor key ending make to the weight and balance of the work.
It was quite challenging to compare recordings of music with so many short, repeated sections and motifs, but I've been comparing Mackerras (no repeat, major key ending, feeling lightweight and, despite Schubert's penchant for rapid minor-major switches, unconvincing) to Venzago and Gottfried - the latter's much greater length is indeed due to that repeat and a more expansive reading of the development - with a very terse tragic conclusion. The notes are too brief, but say that there is "an autograph draft of a complete third movement, including.."all that was needed for its later elaboration....even a complete orchestration of its opening bars."

But what matters even more is that the scherzo is a magnificent, memorable creation, full of defiant energy and a wonderful foil to release the pent-up intensities of the first two. How important it is though to play that finale repeat (of two expansive thematic groups). No wonder the Mackerras recording left some of us intrigued yet uncertain.

Venzago's notes go into great detail about the fascinating background to why and how the finale became "lost"... Too long to quote here - do seek them out, they are on Qobuz with the Sony recording itself. The evidence is strong for the B minor entr'acte to be that very finale.

But Venzago is evidently more interventionist and, uniquely in recordings of the finale I've heard, brings back the stern, dramatic, ascending introductory phrase of the B minor entr'acte - twice during the movement and most effectively too: early in the exposition which then returns to the first group in a softer, more wistful form; and again during the development in the same way, creating a sense of fluidity, complexity and sonata-rondo style scale and sophistication. I really warmed to his version more and more through the comparisons, even finding the quote of the symphony’s opening on double basses (just before the coda) far more convincing, as it seems to have that "family resemblance" to the mood and the material around it.

Perhaps the wonderful CMW recording may seem to marginalise Venzago's very individualistic take; but that would be a pity, I think, and I would still encourage anyone who loves the work to listen to it - rather more than once! Comparing finales has certainly helped me become as familiar with the symphony's last half as inevitably I was with the legendary Unfinished; which for me, it is no longer.

What else can you say, except - go listen....

Bruckner 9, Mahler 10, Enescu 4 and 5... it's becoming quite a selection...

[DublinJimbo]

I've now listened right through again to the new Gottfried recording and I'm won over. In the process I also returned to Venzago and find myself in agreement with Jayne that both recordings are worth having, even if I find Gottfried's finale more convincing.

As Jayne mentions, it's unfortunate that the notes are so skimpy with the Concentus Musicus recording, but Sony more than compensate in their Venzago booklet (although they provide poor value for money overall with only 43 minutes of playing time).

Bottom line: having listened to Gottfried again via Qobuz streaming I've now taken the plunge and have purchased the high-res download to add to my Venzago. It's good to have both, and even better to have Florian Boesch as a bonus.

p.s. And what about the irresistible performance of the Zauberharfe overture that closes the Concentus recording? That's really something too.

[Richard Barrett]

Within a year he agreed to write the music for Rosamunde (a paid commission). He had three weeks to do it. Given this, his use of a large sonata-form movement as an entr'acte is surprising, more so when it's in the same 'difficult' key as the symphony, and scored for the same orchestra. It has been suggested that he had worked on a finale in the intervening period and, no performance of the symphony being forthcoming, he pressed it into service in Rosamunde.

There you go. There are all kinds of reasons (some accessible to scholars, some not) why composers might leave pieces unfinished, especially in the early stages of their "career" when there might be many opportunities, disappointments, changes of direction...

As for the horns having to play in an awkward key, though, Schubert seems not to have cared too much about that sort of thing - see the fourth horn part of "Nachtgesang im Walde" for example - although the Viennese horn-playing Lewy brothers seem to have been using valved instruments already in the mid-1820s.

Apart from which, on the occasions when I've heard the two completed movements in concerts I've always been struck by the unsatisfactory nature of this way of doing it, in a way that I'm not when hearing Mahler's single movement or Bruckner's three. This is more a personal matter than a question of what's "right" or "wrong" of course. One could equally come to the conviction that unfinished works shouldn't be performed at all, since doing so doesn't respect the composer's choices or necessities. In other cases (see the discussion of Symphonies of Wind Instruments) one might prefer the composer's first thoughts to their second ones.

[Barbirollians]

As much as I like Schubert's music for Rosamunde including the Entracte No1 - to my ears it seems quite different in character to the first two movements of the Unfinished that we know and not to reach a similar level of inspiration. So as much as I consider it perfectly plausible that the Entracte No1 was written as a finale for the symphony it is also plausible that he decided not to complete the work or was not entirely happy with that piece as a finale.

Of course he also went on to write the Ninth Symphony after it which also lay unplayed for many years.

[Lion-of-Vienna]

I do not understand the reasoning behind the recent trend for calling the B minor symphony "No.7". After all there is already an unfinished Schubert Symphony No.7, that in E major composed in 1821, the year before the B minor. This is unfinished in a different way to the B minor work. Schubert seems to have composed it directly into the full score which is set out as a complete framework ready to be filled in. Felix Weingartner and Brian Newbould have produced completions of the score.

[Bryn]

I do not understand the reasoning behind the recent trend for calling the B minor symphony "No.7". After all there is already an unfinished Schubert Symphony No.7, that in E major composed in 1821, the year before the B minor. This is unfinished in a different way to the B minor work. Schubert seems to have composed it directly into the full score which is set out as a complete framework ready to be filled in. Felix Weingartner and Brian Newbould have produced completions of the score.

An entirely reasonable viewpont, I think.

Here's a cat to set among the pigeons.

[Pabmusic]

I do not understand the reasoning behind the recent trend for calling the B minor symphony "No.7". After all there is already an unfinished Schubert Symphony No.7, that in E major composed in 1821, the year before the B minor. This is unfinished in a different way to the B minor work. Schubert seems to have composed it directly into the full score which is set out as a complete framework ready to be filled in. Felix Weingartner and Brian Newbould have produced completions of the score.

Schubert left complete and incomplete movements (in score) for several symphonies. We should perhaps be talking about the Unfinished as his 14th or 15th. On the other hand it's a very odd way to go - not what we generally do with other composers.

[Lion-of-Vienna]

Cat among the pigeons indeed!

Brian Newbould discusses the numbering of Schubert’s later symphonies in Appendix 2 of his book “Schubert and the Symphony - A New Perspective”. He puts the blame for the modern confusion over the numbering of the B minor Unfinished (7 or 8) and the Great C major (8 or 9) symphonies at the door of the editors of the revised Deutsch catalogue of Schubert’s works in 1978. He argues that their revised numbering will be brought into question “the more widely the true Seventh (in E major) is performed and discussed”. Surely the main purpose of a numbering system in a series of musical works is to help people to identify a work. Any attempt to change that system, especially in a case as complex as the Schubert symphonies, is basically unhelpful.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I do not understand the reasoning behind the recent trend for calling the B minor symphony "No.7". After all there is already an unfinished Schubert Symphony No.7, that in E major composed in 1821, the year before the B minor. This is unfinished in a different way to the B minor work. Schubert seems to have composed it directly into the full score which is set out as a complete framework ready to be filled in. Felix Weingartner and Brian Newbould have produced completions of the score.

The numbering of the Symphonies in the Deutsch catalogue now reflects those works that can be performed from Schubert's manuscripts as they stand (ie, without anybody filling in any missing bars) in chronological order. The two Movements of the B minor are a unique case in that a careful copyist can simply copy out the score and parts from the manuscript - the work is, strictly speaking, "incomplete" rather than "unfinished" (ie "lacking a "finish" - as in carpentry).

I was lucky in that the very start of my degree at Leeds University came just after the Brian Newbould edition of the E major had received its first performance - and he gave a lecture demonstrating the work involved in producing a workable score from Schubert's manuscript. As I remember it (NB - there was an article in The Musical Times from around this time which covered much of the lecture if anyone has access to it - JSTOR?) "the work involved" is considerable - many of the pages of the manuscript consist of what look like pedal notes in one of the lower parts with repeat marks in a higher line. What we have here are the composer's noting the key/chord area for the passage in question, together with which motif from the Exposition is being Developed during these pages. It isn't too hard for an editor to write something to fit these bars, but each would produce something different - it's a very different case (as are the two D major Symphonies that Newbould also made performable versions of the sketches) from the two finished Movements of the B minor.

(Put simply - anyone with basic Music literacy and a careful attention to detail can make a score and set of parts from the manuscript of the B minor; the E major needs someone with a keen Musical imagination as well.)

[Pabmusic]

Cat among the pigeons indeed!

Brian Newbould discusses the numbering of Schubert’s later symphonies in Appendix 2 of his book “Schubert and the Symphony - A New Perspective”. He puts the blame for the modern confusion over the numbering of the B minor Unfinished (7 or 8) and the Great C major (8 or 9) symphonies at the door of the editors of the revised Deutsch catalogue of Schubert’s works in 1978. He argues that their revised numbering will be brought into question “the more widely the true Seventh (in E major) is performed and discussed”. Surely the main purpose of a numbering system in a series of musical works is to help people to identify a work. Any attempt to change that system, especially in a case as complex as the Schubert symphonies, is basically unhelpful.

There has always been confusion over numbers, caused by (1) George Grove including the E major (the sketch in the RCM) thus making the Unfinished no. 8 and the Great C major no. 9; and (2) Brahms adopting an editorial policy for the complete edition whereby unfinished works always appeared last (thus making the Great C major no. 7 because he didn't include the E major.

So - the man who discovered the E major sketch included it, and he who wrote a realisation of it says it should be played more often. And Central Europeans ignore it all.

If you ignore sketches but include the Unfinished, then 7 is its right number.

[Richard Barrett]

What a mess. Now that I won't be calling it the "Unfinished" any more I guess I'll just identify it by its key. I don't expect the numbering issue is ever going to be definitively resolved!