"Unfinished" Symphony No. 8 – Facsimile of Autograph Manuscript

München: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler. 1978. First. Oblong folio.  88 pp.  Hardcover, marbled boards with linen spine.  No. 873 in a limited edition of 1800.  A striking four-tone lithographic reproduction of Schubert's autograph manuscript for his unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, which rests in the records of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.  The present copy includes both the extra leaf discovered by Christa Landon in 1969 and the empty folios that follow the beginning of the third movement, plus eight additional pages of musical sketches.  German-language afterward by noted musicologists Walther Durr and Christa Landon.  In very fine condition.

"The facts [about Schubert's B Minor symphony] are scarce and mysterious, which has only heightened the intrigue over the years.  There was no mention of this symphony made during the composer’s lifetime.  It lay buried, like hidden treasure, in Anselm Hüttenbrenner’s cluttered study until the 1860s — more than 30 years after Schubert’s death — when it was dusted off to take its place as No. 8 among the known Schubert symphonies.

"The full score, clearly written in Schubert’s own hand, is dated 30 October 1822, Vienna, and signed, with his characteristic flourish, Franz Schubert.  The manuscript, headed 'Symphony in B minor,' includes two movements: a wonderful, singing allegro moderato and a heartbreaking andante con moto — both so sublime that the "Unfinished" nickname is all the more frustrating.  On the back of the final page of the andante are nine measures of a scherzo, fully scored, followed by four blank pages.  In the 1960s, Christa Landon discovered a missing leaf that ought to have come before the empty pages, containing measures 10 through 20 and then stopping abruptly, as if Schubert had been interrupted mid-thought. (A piano sketch of the symphony shows that Schubert had planned the entire scherzo and the beginning of a trio.)  Schubert’s plans for the third-movement scherzo look promising — it begins with a strong theme, first played in octaves by the full orchestra. There is no telling what might have emerged had he polished this raw material into something as fine as the two movements we know so well."  ("The Mystery of Schubert's 'Unfinished' Symphony," Phillip Huscher, Experience, cso.org) (20744)

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