The “Sketch Symphony”
The “Schubertiads” were not invariably indoor affairs. In spring and summer they took the shape of longer or shorter excursions, jaunts into the suburbs or even farther out into the country, with picnicking, dancing, ball-playing, charades and what not. If music of one sort or another was needed, Schubert was always ready to provide it. One of the most charming sites of these frolics (which sometimes lasted several days) was the hamlet of Atzenbrugg, an hour or so from Vienna, and it was here that Schubert produced a delightful set of dances, the Atzenbrugger Deutsche. It may have been at Atzenbrugg, as well, that Schubert composed in August, 1821, a symphony in four movements, sketched out but never completed. This is not, of course, the two-movement torso which the world calls the Unfinished. The Sketch Symphony in E major (with a slow introduction in E minor), is unfinished in a different sense. The first 110 measures are complete in every detail. The rest of the work is carried out only melodically, though with bar lines drawn, tempi and instrumentation indicated, harmonies, accompaniment figures and basses inserted and each subject given in full. The autograph remained at Schubert’s death in the keeping of his brother Ferdinand who later gave it to Mendelssohn, whose brother, Paul, presented it to Sir George Grove. He, in turn, permitted his friend, the English composer, John Francis Barnett, to complete the work and in this form it was first produced in London, in 1883. Only a little over ten years ago the late Felix Weingartner finished it according to his own lights but in a style far less Schubertian than Barnett’s conscientious piety.
We have no means of knowing why Schubert never bothered to carry out in full so elaborately projected a work. Nor have we of his failure to complete the immortal Unfinished. Whatever theories may be advanced are purely speculative. Schubert left large quantities of unfinished work—chamber music, piano sonatas, operas; so why not symphonies? In some cases he may simply have forgotten certain of his creations (as he had a manner of doing), in others he may have lost interest, for others, still, lacked time. Explanations may be plausible yet wholly wide of the mark. Is the Unfinished Symphony unfinished because it has only two movements? Are Beethoven’s two-movement sonatas in any manner “unfinished”? That a 130-bar fragment of a scherzo exists does not mean we have a right to decide it would have been “inferior”—we have no way whatever of knowing what Schubert would have done with a partial sketch. For that matter, piano sketches of the first and second movements of the Unfinished Symphony have actually come down to us. Could we, from an examination of them, tell what the final product would be like if we were not familiar with it?
From what we can judge of the Sketch Symphony its style proves it a bridge between the six early symphonies of Schubert and the two later ones. We say two—were there, peradventure, three? Yes, if there was indeed a Gastein Symphony, of which nobody has ever found a trace though some serious Schubert students have believed and still believe in it. Many have been confused by the manner that has prevailed for years of numbering the last two of Schubert’s symphonies—the Unfinished and the great C major of the “heavenly length.” Why is the C major sometimes called the Seventh, sometimes the Ninth, the Unfinished now the Eighth, now the Seventh?
Title-page of a collection of dances arranged for the piano by leading composers of the period. Included were three of Schubert’s early pieces.
In reality, the answer is simple. In order of composition the Sketch Symphony is the Seventh, the Unfinished the Eighth, the C major of 1828, the Ninth. In order of publication the great C major is the Seventh, the Unfinished (which was not discovered till 1865), the Eighth, the Sketch Symphony (not published till 1883), the Ninth. The consequence of leaving the Sketch Symphony out of one’s calculations is obvious. However, if we maintain that Schubert did write a Gastein Symphony in 1825, we find ourselves obliged to number that legendary opus Nine, whereupon the C major becomes Number Ten!