Sinfonie Nr. 8 in C, D 944 (review)

The importance of Franz Schubert's "Great" C-Major Symphony, D 944, both within its composer's oeuvre and in the history of nineteenth-century symphonic endeavor, is well-attested. The only symphony finished in the last ten years of the composer's life, it is a work rich in interest in relation to that short life and its aspirations —not least in connection with the 1825 Upper Austrian tour associated with its genesis—and fascinating to the analyst intent on exploring its uniqueness in the composer's stylistic development. It also offers manifold interpretative challenges to its performers. But before the performer, the analyst, or the biographer can come to terms with any work, a reliable musical text is a must. With the issue of the "Great" in the Schubert Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke (Neue Schubert-Ausgabe, henceforth NSA), a major step forward toward that goal has been taken.

The editing of this symphony is a major undertaking and far from straightforward. The fact that there is just the one primary source—the composer's autograph (Vien-na, Archiv der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, A 245)—may seem to simplify the task; but that hefty volume raises abundant questions for the one who would make a definitive statement of its writer's intentions. There are, of course, the usual problems with Schubert—the notational inconsistencies, the lack of clarity in certain matters of articulation, and crossings-out and replacements that cannot always be easily understood—and these are here multiplied by the very vastness of the canvas. But then there is the multilayered chronology of the actual writing of the music into the score. An understanding of this chronology can be a guide in informing decisions on any of the above-mentioned issues. The editor's problems are further compounded by the absence of any first printed edition published in Schubert's lifetime, which is often a useful guide in resolving questionable aspects of an autograph if the edition was proofread by the composer. Even a first performance in his lifetime (again absent in this instance) may generate annotations on the performance material that clarify notational issues. There is at least a set of non-autograph parts from 1827, also located in the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna (XIII 8024), which confirm both pencil and ink corrections made by Schubert in the autograph.

Werner Aderhold's preface to the new edition begins by outlining the research that eventually—in the 1970s—led to the correct dating of the manuscript, giving due place to the decisive paper studies undertaken by Robert Winter. The Schubert legacy was thus robbed of the presumed lost 1825 "Gmunden-Gastein" symphony, referred to in documents by Schubert's friends; for the "Great," hitherto dated 1828, now proved to be that very "Gmunden-Gastein" symphony. The residual mystery—a reference by Eduard von Bauernfeld (shortly after Schubert's death) to two symphonies dated respectively 1825 and 1828—was solved at about the same time by the identification of a surviving sketch (D 936A...