Schubert: The Finished "Unfinished" (Symphony No. 8, D. 759, Reconstructed by Mario Venzago)

Album review

Mystery still surrounds the ghost of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony’s third and fourth movements, which may not be that unfinished though. We have long known that the fully orchestrated first thirty bars of the scherzo exist, as well as a “particell” – a monster unfolding the complete musical discourse, but in a reduced form in which the orchestration is only mentioned – of the remaining scherzo. However, from the Trio, only one simple, not harmonized melody remains. As for the last movement, we have nothing…

Many have long argued that Schubert, ill, might have abandoned his work as he considered the last two movements to be unworthy of the first two. This would be omitting that until his last breath, he was still writing staggering masterpieces such as his last quartets and sonatas, hence proving his creative power remained intact. Another disturbing element: had he believed the last two movements to be flawed, why would he had started a fair copy of the scherzo, if not to once and for all complete his work? And why does the orchestrated part suddenly stop at the bottom of the page, the last page of a “notebook” (i.e. a collection of sheets that can be removed without tearing off a page or breaking it apart)? The booklet accompanying the album, written by Mario Venzago – who leads the chamber orchestra Kammerorchester Basel – offers speculation: Schubert may have asked Huttenbrenner to urgently send him the symphony’s last movement with a goal in mind: to recycle it for a scene in Rosamunde, for which he had just been commissioned on very short notice; Huttenbrenner might have torn off the “notebooks” featuring the fourth movement, which contained part of the scherzo as well. Appealing as it seems, this remains a theory. Still, for Rosamunde Venzago used all the elements that in terms of harmonic and melodic continuity transition smoothly, and “restored” a very convincing fourth movement. It remains to be seen if the two last movements are on par with the first two – which Venzago interprets following different tempi and conceptions, since the symphony isn’t an assembling of two slow movements anymore, but the continuity of four. This means the first movement seems much faster than usual… © SM/Qobuz