Schubert’s 4th Symphony: Advice please

[alycidon]

In the early 1960s I purchased a Pelican entitled ‘The Symphony’ where Schubert’s were discussed by William McNaught. Referring to the 4th in C minor he says, and I quote - ‘an analytical note on the fourth symphony has to take the line that it is not a very good work.’

Now, I happen to like this symphony to the extent that if I were only allowed one symphony on my desert island, then this is the one that I would choose. I was therefore highly miffed by his disparaging comments - as I still am. I am not musically trained so I cannot pretend to understand just what he meant and I wondered if someone on this forum could suggest what is so wrong with the work.

I have never understood why Schubert termed it ‘Tragic’ as I find it extremely joyful, and it never fails to lift my spirits. I am currently listening to a performance by Loren Maazel and the Bavarian RSO and my word, does it sparkle?

[edashtav]

In the early 1960s I purchased a Pelican entitled ‘The Symphony’ where Schubert’s were discussed by William McNaught. Referring to the 4th in C minor he says, and I quote - ‘an analytical note on the fourth symphony has to take the line that it is not a very good work.’

Now, I happen to like this symphony to the extent that if I were only allowed one symphony on my desert island, then this is the one that I would choose. I was therefore highly miffed by his disparaging comments - as I still am. I am not musically trained so I cannot pretend to understand just what he meant and I wondered if someone on this forum could suggest what is so wrong with the work.

I have never understood why Schubert termed it ‘Tragic’ as I find it extremely joyful, and it never fails to lift my spirits. I am currently listening to a performance by Loren Maazel and the Bavarian RSO and my word, does it sparkle?

Well, it may not be "tragic" but the 4th is, with the Unfinished, one of only two Schubert symphonies in a minor key. It does look back, but not in Anger, at the Sturm and Drang works of Haydn. It is an apprentice work with roots protruding all over the show. It does seem like small beer compared with the Twin Peaks of Schubert's symphonic output. Now that folk are more tolerant of works of a conservative nature, I feel that the Tragic is getting more performances and a better reception, alycidon.

[richardfinegold]

I have the Blomstedt complete set, which cost the price of a Starbucks on Brilliant, and the Harnoncourt set which I think was the gift for a donation to our local radio station, and have always enjoyed the work, but for me it is always overshadowed by the 5th

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Whilst the '50s and '60s were blessed with many books written for a general audience to gain a wider appreciation of the Arts for a modest cost, they were also cursed by a number of writers who took it upon themselves to broadcast their slovenly, patronising opinions of the less-well-known works of the more-well-known composers. McNaught - and what grim irony that name! - was so little esteemed that his essay was replaced by a far more satisfactory and perceptive one by Harold Truscott in the later Pelican Symphony, edited by Robert Simpson. There is also the BBC "Ariel" Music Guide to the Schubert Symphonies by Maurice J E Brown (who was himself not innocent of the sort of careless, patronising opining in his books on Schubert's Piano Sonatas and String Quartets), which contains remarks pertinent to alycidon's OP:

The subtitle "Tragic" has given rise to a good deal of comment, usually drawing attention to its inaptness. ... Schubert added the title some time after the Symphony was finished. ... This subtitling of one of his works in classical sonata form is a remarkable event; he did it on this occasion for the first and only time, Several of his youthful manuscripts, however, bear distinctly humorous, even schoolboyishly flippant, comments. The strangest occurs on the manuscript of the Funeral March, D79; the words "Franz Schubert's Funeral" in the composer's own hand ... Yet no one, listening to that piece, would consider it as other than a genuinely solemn funeral march. Is "Tragic" another of Schubert's humorous or ironic comments ... ? ... Takne on its own terms, the four movements provide unalloyed pleasure to the listener, and it is preferable, when we listen to them, to forget all about the "Tragic" of the title.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... which reminds me of Brahms' description warning his friends to expect his Second Symphony to be unbearably "tragic" (requiring black-edged paper for the score).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I was surprised, checking just now, to see that the Fourth is the only Schubert symphony I don't own a score of. Via imslp, therefore, I've just followed the work - and the things that stand out for me are

1) the three rising quaver upbeats into main themes in each Movement
2) a first Movement second group in Ab major, (rather than the more orthodox Eb relative major, or G major/minor) and prominent moments in the second and third movements where the music "settles" in Db major and B major (each a semitone away from the overall tonic)
3) the cunning use of syncopation - particularly in the second movement, where a quaver - crotchet - quaver motif is alternatively notated with accents on the first quaver in one presentation, and then on the crotchet in the next (and this pattern reversed in the recapitulation) - creating a shifting sense of "downbeat". (And this "where's the downbeat"?" continues more forcefully in the Scherzo.)

And, of course, the overall compelling dramatic and lyrical character(s) of the "Music" itself. Why "Tragic"? Not, I think, in any funereal sense, but in that "drama", that restless pushing forward, perhaps. And even the major mode ending doesn't sound "optimistic" or "triumphant" (let alone "happy").

"Has to take the line that it is not a very good work"?! What a wa ... lly!

[Dave2002]

Sometimes I think that the earlier works by Schubert (and perhaps others) have the merit of brevity. I like the 3rd,5th and 6th, and I can't remember anything particularly adverse about the 4th either. I put the 8th and the 9th in a different class. I'm not so fond of the 8th, and the 9th - well on a good day it's great, but sometimes I feel it "just goes on a bit"!

[Bryn]

Sometimes I think that the earlier works by Schubert (and perhaps others) have the merit of brevity. I like the 3rd,5th and 6th, and I can't remember anything particularly adverse about the 4th either. I put the 8th and the 9th in a different class. I'm not so fond of the 8th, and the 9th - well on a good day it's great, but sometimes I feel it "just goes on a bit"!

diddly-dum, diddly-dum, diddly-dum, diddly-dum, diddly-dum, . . .

I love it.

[cloughie]

Sometimes I think that the earlier works by Schubert (and perhaps others) have the merit of brevity. I like the 3rd,5th and 6th, and I can't remember anything particularly adverse about the 4th either. I put the 8th and the 9th in a different class. I'm not so fond of the 8th, and the 9th - well on a good day it's great, but sometimes I feel it "just goes on a bit"!

On the other hand, the ninth has a wonderful strength in length! I like all the Schubert symphonies, particlarly the 2 movement 8!

[LeMartinPecheur]

I like the 3rd,5th and 6th...

Have you been taking the Beecham's Pill of that name Dave?

[LeMartinPecheur]

In the early 1960s I purchased a Pelican entitled ‘The Symphony’ where Schubert’s were discussed by William McNaught. Referring to the 4th in C minor he says, and I quote - ‘an analytical note on the fourth symphony has to take the line that it is not a very good work.’

IIRC (and I'm pretty ignorant about musical theory), one of the standard charges against early Schubert back then was that he was cheating or lazy-going-on-incompetent in sonata-form movements because, at the end of a movement, he simply recapitulated the whole exposition down a 5th, so that the 2nd subject came back neatly in the tonic, where a 'proper composer' brought the 1st subject back in the tonic at the recapitulation and then did some real composition to keep the 2nd subject there as well (instead of modulating usually by a 5th as it did in the exposition).

(Haven't seen these charges laid against Schubert for years, but...)

Would real musicians care to comment please?

[Mal]

The expert "third ear" reviewer (Paul Althouse) gives 1-6 their due, suggesting they provide examples of Schubert's wonderful lyrical gift and sure command of harmony, following the models of Haydn and Mozart. He does say they don't show the originality of the later symphonies. Maybe too much stress is placed on originality by too many reviewers? Who wouldn't want a few more Mozart symphonies at their most lyrical and harmonious?

The (excellent) notes to the performance on CD that I have (Menuhin/Sinfonia Varsovia) point out that the 4th starts in C minor but then moves to C major in the opening; that accords (perhaps) with me hearing it starting a "bit tragic", but the becoming very positive. So maybe Schubert was playing with us, building up the expectation of tragedy in the title and the opening, but then wafting us away to a joyful place.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's one of my favourite Schubert Symphonies, one I got to know by the late, great Antony Hopkins on Talking About Music. When he introduced the slow movement, I recognised it as the A flat Impromptu Op.142, no. 2. Schubert often lifted and adapted his own thematic material.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I haven't studied (in any real sense of the word) the Symphonies of Sammartini and his contemporaries, but I believe I was told that the Recapitulation using the whole Exposition transposed down a fifth was a legitimate use of Tonality in those early sonata principle works: it gives a neat symmetry to the structure of a movement I - V "V" IV - I, and is no "lazier" in principle than simply copying out the First Group from the Exposition in the Recap.

Schubert does follow this "older" pattern in the finale of the 3rd Symphony, and the first movements of the Fourth and Fifth. (I discover that I don't have a score of the Sixth, either) but the more familiar pattern in all the other movements of his first five symphonies. Seeing how inventive the use of Tonality is in these works (in the Fourth Symphony, the Exposition moves from c minor to Ab major, the Recapitulation from G major to C major, which is far from a "simple" transposition down a fifth) and seeing how in these works Schubert also demonstrates that he was perfectly competent in his handling of the more familiar structuring, I think that we can safely suggest that any "lazy-going-on-incompetent" work would be that of any critic who so described the Music in these terms.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I haven't studied (in any real sense of the word) the Symphonies of Sammartini and his contemporaries, but I believe I was told that the Recapitulation using the whole Exposition transposed down a fifth was a legitimate use of Tonality in those early sonata principle works: it gives a neat symmetry to the structure of a movement I - V "V" IV - I, and is no "lazier" in principle than simply copying out the First Group from the Exposition in the Recap.

Mozart did the same in his K.545 piano sonata.