# What do you think of Schubert's symphonies?



## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

Well, I love them all!!

*Symphonies *

*Symphony No. 1 in D major, D 82* - Pretty good for a 16 year old!

*Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major, D 125*- Pretty great for a 17 year old! The first movement is just amazeballs!

*Symphony No. 3 in D major, D 200* - Pretty amazing for an 18 year old! It is the most haydn-esque of his symphonies, and he showers the clarinets with love in the first movement!

*Symphony No. 4 in C minor, D 417 Tragic*- Pretty good for a 19 year old. It's very very Classical.. 

*Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D 485* - Pretty outstanding for a 19 year old! Certainly the best of his eraly symphonies.. I think its more refined than Mozart early symphonies written at the same age!

*Symphony No. 6 in C major, D 589 Little C major*- Pretty ok to me. It sounds so Rossini if Rossini would write a symphony. The fourth movement reminds me of a stroll in a park..

*Symphony No. 7 in E major, D 729: Sketched in full score 1821, with part of the first movement fully orchestrated (performing versions by John Barnett, Felix Weingartner and Brian Newbould)* - No comment

*Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D 759 Unfinished, sometimes counted as No. 7.* - Pretty exceptional when it was written when he was 25!! Imagine of LvB would wrote that in that age. I just so love this Romantic symphony.. It's like "beauty" written over it. I believe it is the first Romantic symphony (not Eroica).

*Symphony No. 9 in C major, D 944 Great C major*, sometimes counted as No. 7 or No. 8 
- Pretty heavenly for a 29 year old!!! My favorite symphony ever.. One of the greatest written and according to the program notes I have read, "the greatest symphony of Post-Classical era". I just love every movement of it!


----------



## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

I prefer Schubert's 'late' symphs to Beethovens' (if a comparison must be made, and I doubt it must). More organic and less obviously _crafted_. I think of Schubert as the true successor to Mozart, in the natural way his music flowed, seeming not to be composed but to preexist somewhere and come to us through him as a complete work.

My favourite is the so-called _Unfinished_, which I suspect sounds very finished to most of us... :tiphat:


----------



## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

8 and 9 are among the best of the age. I'm also very fond of the Mozart homage in no. 5.

The rest are quite good, but sometimes sound like second-pressings of Beethoven to my ears. I admit that I haven't got to know them like 5, 8, and 9, though.

I haven't heard 7, but then I suspect it's only given a number to make the total curse-compliant.


----------



## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

no.9 is probably my favourite all time symphony.
It's strange - when you first listen to it, it seems pretty uninteresting, I suppose because it isn't as melodic as say the Unfinished. But after repeated listenings it really starts to connect and feel heavenly.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Nos. 1-4 are fine for a composer of his tender years but it was too early to really stamp his own individual authority on this form in much the same way it was with his early quartets. Nos. 5 & 6 show he's getting there but obviously 8 & 9 stand head and shoulders above the rest and are a tantalising hint as to what he could have achieved in the full flowering of the Romantic era had he lived another 20 or so years.


----------



## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

The true number 7 in E minor isn't bad. Its actually pretty good. Please find the Newbould orchestration.


----------



## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Who to save from early death: Keats, Mozart, Schubert? Ah, questions..


----------



## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

IMO Symphony 4 is highly underrated. I've always thought it masked as a late-ish Mozart symphony. That's a good thing.

Same goes for his 5th, though.

Still, No. 4, so great.


----------



## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

peeyaj said:


> *Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D 485* - Pretty outstanding for a 19 year old! Certainly the best of his eraly symphonies.. I think its more refined than Mozart early symphonies written at the same age!


Schubert of course was able to build on what a whole load of composers (including Mozart) had done in the past, so I'm not sure about that comparison.

You missed out the 10th (completed by Newbould) which I have liked since I heard it first long again performed by Marriner I think on LP.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Kieran said:


> I think of Schubert as the true successor to Mozart, in the natural way his music flowed, seeming not to be composed but to preexist somewhere and come to us through him as a complete work.


Rosen would agree with you. In "The Classical Form," he recalls that Count Waldstein sent Beethoven off to Vienna with a note saying, "May you receive the spirit of Mozart from the hands of Haydn." And he adds that it didn't turn out that way -- Beethoven never was and never could be a Mozart. That had to wait for Schubert.


----------



## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

If you look at it as two different strands of classical

Haydn - Beethoven- Schumann - Brahms

Mozart - Schubert - Mendelssohn - Tchaikovsky


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

starry said:


> If you look at it as two different strands of classical
> 
> Haydn - Beethoven- Schumann - Brahms
> 
> Mozart - Schubert - Mendelssohn - Tchaikovsky


Material for a book or two here! I'd add Chopin in the Mozart lineage, but need a fourth for Haydn for symmetry. Who?


----------



## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Material for a book or two here! I'd add Chopin in the Mozart lineage, but need a fourth for Haydn for symmetry. Who?


I agree with grouping Mozart, Schubert, and Chopin; but Mendelssohn, no.


----------



## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

Numbers 8 and 9 were among the first classical era symphonies I was introduced to. Love them still!!!!


----------

