Why Was the "Unfinished" Unfinished?

I've been writing program notes for the Coastside Community Orchestra concert May 9, and thought it might be fun to post them in advance. Why Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, Number Seven or Number Eight, depending, remained unfinished is one of those music mysteries which has always invited speculation, and sometimes downright fiction. Here's my take on it. (The concert will be at 7 P.M. at Coastside Lutheran Church, 900 Cabrillo Highway, Half Moon Bay.)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Symphony in B Minor, D. 759 “Unfinished”

            Franz Schubert himself said that he was born for no other purpose than to make music. And make music he did, producing in his short life 19 string quartets, 21 piano sonatas, 600 songs, ten operas, seven masses, volumes of work for piano solo and piano duet, and nine or ten symphonies including the “Unfinished.”

            Harold Schonberg says in Lives of the Great Composers that Schubert “seemed content to pour out page after page of music, whether or not it was performed.” He left no estate—no property or progeny-- except for music manuscripts scattered all over Vienna. Robert Schumann discovered Schubert’s unplayed ninth symphony, the so-called “Great C Major” in a box left at a brother’s house, and Felix Mendelssohn conducted the world premiere of the work in 1839, eleven years after Schubert’s death.

            Schubert was the twelfth of 14 children and became a boy soprano in Vienna’s court chapel at the Imperial and Royal Academy, where he received his musical education. He never traveled far from Vienna. By the age of eleven, he was already a prolific composer. He may not have had quite the gravity of his contemporary, Beethoven, but no one could resist the singular beauty of his melodies and the startling innovations in his key-shifting harmonies. The house concerts—Schubertiades—arranged by his friends were famous.

            The original seventh symphony, in E major, was sketched out in 1821 and was never completed, so the B Minor work done in 1822 became Number Seven. Number nine, the symphony unearthed by Schumann, was written in the last year of Schubert’s life. Another symphony known as the Gmunden-Gastein (for two places Schubert had spent summer vacations) has been lost, though some elements may have been used in the Great C Major.

            Just why the Seventh remained unfinished has been the subject of much creative speculation. The symphony was dedicated to the Graz Musical Society which had just nominated Schubert, and in 1822 the composer left it in the hands of a member, who apparently laid it aside and never delivered it to the society. Since Schubert lived six years after that, composing all the while, chances are that he—and the friend—simply forgot about the symphony, or that the friend lost the last two movements.

            Schubert was a pallbearer at Beethoven’s funeral and died of typhoid a year later at the age of 31. He was buried beside Beethoven in what today is called Schubert Park, in Vienna.

            In 1894 Franz von Suppé (“Light Cavalry Overture,” “Poet and Peasant,”etc.) wrote an operetta, “Franz Schubert,” which one reviewer described as “wonderful biographical kitsch based on Schubert tunes,” and in 1916 another musical play loosely based on Schubert’s life had its premiere in Vienna, setting words to his famous melodies. Known as “Blossom Time” in the adaptation by Sigmund Romberg, the musical was wildly successful.

            Although classicists may have cringed at the popularized treatment of Schubert’s music, the operetta did in fact accomplish posthumously Schubert’s hopes of writing for the stage, and the play’s success was due almost entirely to the beauty of Schubert’s unforgettable melodies.

(Watercolor by Howard Gilligan, from Julius Schmid's 1897 painting of a Schubertiade.) 

Clef Signs and Piano Duets

To the non-musician, the treble clef sign is just an icon representing music; the bass clef sign is a mystery, and the other clef signs are nothing but hieroglyphics. To the musician, however, the clef signs are fixed stars. They show the unchanging location on the lines or spaces of a particular music note, and just as you can find your way by knowing East, all the other notes may be found from the one.

The treble clef sign shows the G above middle C and the bass clef sign shows, between its dots, the fixed location of the F below middle C. The less familiar clef signs fix the location of middle C and are used by cellists, violists, trombone players and others who spend lots of time in that desert between the top line of the bass clef and the bottom line of the treble. Tenors in choirs use a treble clef which sometimes has a little figure eight at the bottom, since their notes are sung or played an octave lower than written.

“Treble” means high and “Bass” means low. Most pianists are used to having the right hand on the higher notes and the left on the bottom. We never take the clef signs for granted, however, since both hands could play in either treble or bass.

In the wonderful world of piano duets, it is common practice for primo or prima (the high part) to play using two treble clefs, with secondo or seconda playing two bass clefs, both hands on the bottom part of the piano.

In the old days, before phonographs and radio, piano duets were often the only way people could hear the latest orchestral or chamber music works when they lived far away from cities which had orchestras (almost everybody had a piano and many people could play a little.) Four hands would split the parts of the instruments between them. Even Brahms, during whose lifetime recording was invented, provided four-hands versions of some of his works.

In the 19^th Century days, a courting couple might be left unchaperoned if the lady’s female companion could hear the piano from her post outside the salon door. A few three-hand piano pieces date from this time.

Scrambling the clef signs produces a different kind of recreation for the player with no discernible difference in the sound. Chopin, Schumann and others would sometimes write a bass clef note higher than the treble note played at the same time. The effect is that the player’s thumbs cross, a kind of “Hello” from the composer, since the listener can’t tell from the sound that this is happening.

Mozart at least once wrote duets so that one player was still holding a key down when the other player landed on it. Mozart’s duets were probably played with his sister Nannerl, so he managed in this way to give her finger a good poke.

Other composers including Schubert and Brahms arrange the clefs so that the duet player’s arms cross. Great examples of this are the last part of Schubert’s piano duet piece called “Our Friendship Never Changes” (“Notre amitie est invariable”) and the fourth Brahms Hungarian Dance which John and I are playing in the video.

Duet references: Cameron McGraw, Piano Duet Repertoire, Indiana University Press. Ernest Lubin, The Piano Duet, Grossman.