Schubert: Unfinished and Great Symphony

Album review

René Jacobs and the B’Rock Orchestra complete their Schubert cycle on Pentatone with the composer’s two most famous symphonies, the "Unfinished" and "Great". In his extensive liner notes, Jacobs develops a theory that the B Minor Symphony did not remain “unfinished”, but was deliberately left unfinished, because Schubert shaped its two movements in analogy to Mein Traum ("My Dream"), an autobiographical narration in two parts, written in 1822, simultaneous to the creation of the symphony.

While the first half of Mein Traum tells about his mother’s decease and his problematic relationship to his father, the second part enters a magical, Romantic realm, and eventually brings a reconciliation with his father. On this recording, the two parts of the narration precede the two movements of the "Unfinished" Symphony, and are recited by Tobias Moretti.

Jacobs argues that, after the dream-inspired "Unfinished", the "Great" C Major Symphony, with its solemn character and sublime dimensions, served as a liberation for Schubert. Presenting these contrasting works forms a fitting apotheosis to a cycle that has been designed from the onset as a series of symphonic pairs. The players of the B’Rock Orchestra present these works on period instruments; transparent, but full of fire. © Pentatone