Regarding Schubert's Missing 'Gastein' Symphony?

Question

My understanding has been that Schubert's 'Gastein Symphony' was presumed lost, until scholars realized it was in fact his 9th symphony (the 'Great'). But Wikipedia tells me the 7th Symphony, D. 729, is a structurally complete work. Is there then a symphony of Schubert's (i.e., of the nine) which doesn't actually exist?

Answer 1

Confusion arises for different factors. Schubert left unfinished some of his late symphonies; some of them, moreover, were rediscovered after his death: even the manuscript of the C major Symphony “The Great” was found only in 1838 by Robert Schumann. Furthermore, the catalogues of Schubert’s works, drawn up after his death, followed different principles.

So, for instance, George Grove in 1867 assigned the following numbering to Schubert’s late symphonies:

N° 7 - E major (which was sketched but not entirely scored by Schubert in 1821);

N° 8 - B minor (the so-called “Unfinished”, 1822);

N° 9 - C major (“The Great”, 1825-1828).

But Breitkopf & Härtel, when preparing the 1897 Schubert’s complete works edition, originally planned to publish only finished works (which would have given the “Great C major” n° 7), with the sketched E major symphony and the “Unfinished” receiving no number and classified as “fragments”. Nevertheless, when Johannes Brahms became general editor of the project, he decided to assign the following numbering:

N° 7 - C major (“The Great”);

N° 8 - B minor (“Unfinished”)

giving the E major symphony no number.

The current reference catalogue of Schubert’s works was drawn up by the Austrian musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch, published in English in 1951 and subsequently revised for a new edition in German (Bärenreiter-Verlag) in 1978. In this last edition, the Schubert’s symphonies are classified as follows:

Symphony n° 1 in D major D 82 (1813);

Symphony n° 2 in B flat major D 125 (1814-1815);

Symphony n° 3 in D major D 200 (1815);

Symphony n° 4 in C minor “Tragic” D 417 (1816);

Symphony n° 5 in B flat major D 485 (1816);

Symphony n° 6 in C major D 589 (1817-1818);

Symphony [no number] in E major D 729 (1821);

Symphony n° 7 in B minor “Unfinished” D 759 (1822);

Symphony n° 8 in C major “The Great” D 944 (1825-1828).

There are also some “Sketches for a Symphony in D major” (composed by Schubert in the last weeks of his life, and identified in 1977 by Ernst Hilmar) under the catalogue number D 936a.

This is the reason why different editions of the same score of one of Schubert’s late symphonies can bring different numbers. The best way to refer to them is by quoting their key.