The “Unfinished”
As for the B minor Symphony, the sweet, grief-burdened, nostalgic Unfinished, the fable has prevailed for years that it was written as a thanks offering to the Steiermärkischer Musikverein of Graz, which had elected Schubert to membership and of which Anselm Hüttenbrenner was artistic director. As a matter of fact, the date on the title page of the manuscript is October 30, 1822. But not till April 10, 1823, was Schubert proposed for membership in the society and not till September, 1823, was the composer informed of his election. He wrote a letter to Graz promising to send the Musikverein, as a token of his gratitude, the score of one of his symphonies. But it was not until a year later that, prodded by his father, who was shocked by the idea that a son of his had waited so long to thank the society “worthily,” he gave Josef Hüttenbrenner the score of the B minor Symphony to deliver to Anselm in Graz.
So much for facts! We may as well pursue the epic of the Unfinished to its close. We do not know whether Anselm ever showed the symphony to the society and there is no record that he mentioned it to a soul, though he is said to have made a piano arrangement of the symphony for his own use. Not till 1860 did Josef Hüttenbrenner speak of it to Johann Herbeck, conductor of the Vienna Society of the Friends of Music, and five more years were to elapse before Herbeck, on a visit to Graz, obtained the score from Anselm on the plea of wanting to produce some “new” works by Hüttenbrenner, Lachner and Schubert. On December 17, 1865, Vienna heard the Unfinished for the first time. The autograph shows no trace of any dedication to the Graz Music Society or to anybody else! But from the start the symphony was acclaimed an undefiled masterpiece.