The Unfinished and The Scottish

AuthenticClassicalConcerts
Franz Schubert
Symphony No.8 b minor "The Unfinished"

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Symphony No.3 a minor Op. 56 "Scottish"

The New Symphony Orchestra Sofia
Conductor - Petko Dimitrov

Franz Schubert
was born on January 31st 1797 in Vienna and he died thirty-one years old on November 19th 1828. He left approximately thousand compositions - a lifework which appears even more colossal considering the shortness of his life. This life was not only short, but also lacking in "great" events in comparison to other important composers. Schubert never played a particular part in public life, he made just a few short journeys and lived basically a inconspicuous life.

But the posterity could not accept the unspectacular biography of the creator of such marvelous music and so the composer was exalted to an unappreciated romantic genius with particular „gentle" traits some decades after his death. Since the middle of the 19th century, a long line of „biographic" novellas and novels as well as innumerable sculptural portrayals, among them about 700 postcards, caused a false popularity of Schubert. The concrete facts about the course of his life handed down scantily were „completed" by doubtful „memories" and anecdotes.
The „biographic" Singspiel „Das Dreimäderlhaus", performed for the first time in 1916 in Vienna, contributed to the diffusion of an utterly distorted picture of Schubert: This work feigns authenticity by including original compositions by Schubert. Off the handed down clichés, our Schubert documentary is limited to a short summary of the secured facts about his life, a short survey of his works and an outline of the Austrian Schubert memorial places.

Franz Schubert left in all seven complete symphonies and six symphony fragments. To the last ones belongs the mysterious torso, which became as „the Unfinished" more famous than any other of his finished works in this genre.
Just some years ago, the musicology still disagreed on the question about the numbering and the chronological order of the last Schubert symphonies.

The last years (1823-1828) of Schubert's life were outwardly determined by his syphilitic disease and frequent moves. Despite all difficulties, he developed an astonishing creative power, after overcoming the creative crisis of 1819/20.
At the end of February 1823, Schubert mentioned his disease for the first time in a letter to a friend. During the summer, he was working on his new opera „Fierabras" and made with Vogl a journey of several weeks to Linz and Steyr. In autumn, he composed the drama music for Rosamunde. Now he tried for the first time to get medical treatment and stayed in hospital for a prolonged period. He composed there the lieder cycle „Die schöne Müllerin". After his stay in hospital, Schubert lived with Josef Huber near the Stubentor bastion. In 1824, the Esterházy family invited him once again to come to Zseliz and Schubert, supposed to be recovered, spent the summer months there. Back to Vienna, he lived in the house of his father till February 1825. Then he moved to the surroundings of the Karlskirche in the neighborhood of his friend Moritz von Schwind. He lived there till October 1826.

In May 1825, he started off on his longest journey with Vogl. It lasted just under six months and took the friends across Upper Austria and Salzburg. During a longer stay in Badgastein, where Vogl hoped for cure of gout, Schubert had probably also taken a cure. In Badgatein he composed several lieder and was working on his great C major symphony, that he began in Gmunden. At the beginning of October, he returned to Vienna via Linz. In 1826, he had to suffer once more a professional defeat: His application for the vacant post of Viennese vice-court conductor was rejected. His efforts toward finding an editor for his works failed also for the moment.

Nevertheless he was already rather well-known as composer in Vienna. The newspapers published again and again advertisements of publishers and his works were often performed in great public concerts. And when Ludwig van Beethoven died in March 1827, Schubert had the honor of taking part in the obsequies as one of the 36 torchbearers beside Grillparzer and Raimund.

In February 1827, Schubert moved with his friend Schober as subtenants into two rooms and a „music chamber" in the house „Zum blauen Igel", Tuchlauben 14. He lived there till a few weeks before he died. He spent the September 1827 in Graz as guest of the lawyer Pachler and his wife Marie, a pianist. Back to Vienna, he was working on the second part of his lieder cycle „Winterreise", that he had begun already in February.

On January 28th 1828, a „great" Schubertiad with prominent guests was performed with Joseph von Spaun at the „Klepperställe" in Vienna's Teinfaltstraße: It was to be the last meeting like this. Encouraged by the success, Schubert set about organizing - on his friend's Eduard von Bauernfeld (1802-1892) advice - a so-called „private concert" with exclusively own works. Exactly one year after Beethoven's death, on March 26th 1828, this concert was actually given at the hall of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (society of music-lovers) in the Tuchlauben. It was a great artistic and financial success for Schubert - even though it was totally outshone by the first Viennese concert of the famous violinist Niccolo Paganini. Not a Viennese newspaper took notice of that unique event in history of music.

In September 1828, Schubert went to live with his brother Ferdinand in the Viennese suburb Neu-Wieden. He was in bad health - probably he had contracted a typhoid infection. After an excursion to Eisenstadt in October, his state went from bad to worse. Nevertheless he enrolled for studies of the fugue with Simon Sechter (1788-1867), the famous theory teacher and composer, and began also with composition exercises. But finally he got just one single lesson.

From November 11th on, Schubert was confined to bed. He died on November 19th. On November 21st, he was buried at the cemetery of Währing near Beethoven's tomb and many people took part in the obsequies. When the cemetery of Währing was closed in 1888, Schubert's mortal remains were transferred to the Wiener Zentralfriedhof (Viennese central cemetery) and interred in a tomb of honor.