Symphony in E major (Schubert)

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The symphony in E major ( D 729) from the summer of 1821 is one of five unfinished symphonies by Franz Schubert . Outside of the German-speaking countries, it has recently been frequently counted as Schubert's 7th Symphony .

Schubert left behind seven fully composed symphonies. The very existence of the so-called Unfinished in B minor and a whole series of fragments from his earliest to late creative period caused numerous music researchers to search for further symphonies by Schubert. Research into the " Gmunden-Gasteiner " from 1825, which had long been believed to be lost, led to attempts at forgery, for example by Gunter Elsholz (1936-2004), which Werner Maser documented.

Unlike his other symphonic fragments, there is a Schubert symphony in E major from 1821 in a complete draft from the first to the last bar in all four movements . Schubert orchestrated the first 110 bars in full score, with a larger instrumentation than in his other symphonies. He only had to invest a little in the complete execution, everything was already designed. The fragment is divided into the following sentences:

  1. Adagio - Allegro
  2. Andante
  3. Scherzo and Trio
  4. Allegro giusto

Schubert's brother Ferdinand sent the manuscript in 1846 to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , who had already premiered Schubert's Great Symphony in C major D 944 in 1839 , the score of which Robert Schumann had transferred from Vienna to Leipzig. However, there was just as little realization by Mendelssohn as by Arthur Sullivan or Johannes Brahms .

For the first time in 1881 the English composer John Francis Barnett produced a performable version of the symphony, which was premiered on May 5, 1883 in the Crystal Palace in London and was published by Breitkopf & Härtel as a piano reduction for four hands. The scores in this version were destroyed in the fire of the Kristallpalast in 1936 and in the destruction of the Breitkopf & Härtel publishing house in Leipzig in 1943. Barnett's version is considered to be quite successful and - in contrast to Weingartner's version - is much closer to Schubert's idiom. When and how often this version was played, however, can hardly be found out; however, a performance in Cleveland / Ohio from the Schubert commemorative year 1928 is documented. The New York Times wrote:

“In Cleveland, Nikolai Sokoloff and his Cleveland Orchestra gave the US premiere of the E major Symphony. Schubert had left it in sketch form and after his death it went to Mendelssohn, presumably to orchestrate. But Mendelssohn, too, died young and it went to Sir George Grove who left it to the Royal College of Music in London. John Francis Barnett, a minor Britisher, made the only orchestration in the '80s, but it was never published. From manuscript, 107 years after Schubert wrote it, Conductor Sokoloff played it and thereby surpassed the rest of the celebrating world in enterprise. Monday, Dec. 03, 1928. "

What happened to the orchestral material in this performance - whether it still exists - is not known.

In 1934 an adaptation by Felix Weingartner was created . In 1971 Ernst Märzendorfer performed a revised version of Weingartner's score in Vienna. He eliminated its harmonious retouching, the style-alien additions - especially the many post-composed transitions - and opened the lines, especially in the finale. The ORF broadcast this concert, but the recording is no longer in the station's archive. However, this revision is hardly known. For his work, Märzendorfer used the copy of the autograph that Johannes Brahms had made and which is in the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Weingartner had also used this source.

More recently, the symphony in the amended version by Brian Newbould (1982) has again been made accessible to a wider public. This is considered to be the most faithful version to date, since Newbould, unlike Weingartner, reacts to interventions such B. No cuts.

The autograph is in the Royal College of Music London, signature: MS. 586.

Recordings or sound carriers

Version by Felix Weingartner:

  • Schubert: Symphony No. 7th Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Franz Litschauer (recording 1952) Naxos 9.80641
  • Franz Schubert: Symphony in E major D 729, Symphonic Fragments D 615, 708a, 936a. Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Heinz Rögner (1977/1979). Berlin Classics 8530668
  • Felix Weingartner: Violin Concerto in G major op. 52; Schubert / Weingartner: Symphony in E major, D 729. Laurent Albrecht Breuninger (violin), SWR Rundfunkorchester Kaiserslautern, Alun Francis (2007) CPO 6614805

Version by Brian Newbould:

  • Schubert: The 10 Symphonies. Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner , 6 CD set (1982-84), Philips, 470 886-2.
  • Schubert: Symphony No. 7 in E major, D 729. Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gabriel Chmura (1988) Koch-Schwann 311 012 H1.

literature

  • Rudolf Kloiber : Handbook of the classical and romantic symphony. 2nd expanded edition. Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 1976, ISBN 3-7651-0017-X .
  • Mario Lohmann: The Symphony Fragments D 615, D 708A and D 729 . In: Schubert through the glasses ( IFSI ) 30 (2003), pp. 69–90.
  • Brian Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony. A New Perspective . Toccata Press, Surbiton 1992, ISBN 0-907689-27-2 .
  • Wolfram Steinbeck : Symphony in E (D 729). In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01418-5 , pp. 624-632.
  • Michael Steinberg: The Symphony. A Listener's Guide . Oxford University Press, New York 1995, ISBN 0-19-506177-2 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ This occasionally leads to confusion, since in the 19th century both the so-called “Unfinished” and the “Great C major Symphony” were marked with the number 7. In the German directory , the number 7 is now intended for the symphony in B minor D 759 (the "unfinished").
  2. ^ Music. Cleveland Orchestra's Concert. New York Times, December 5, 1928
  3. ^ Franz Schubert / Felix Weingartner - Symphony in E major. Preface to the score, Universal Edition AG, Vienna, 2002 ( Memento of the original from July 2, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.musikmph.de
  4. ↑ Concert entry from April 30, 1971 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the event archive of the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich , accessed on October 10, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / 80.120.141.24