Adam Cullen Final Thesis MLITT

Schubert's Chamber Music as a Road towards a
'Grand Symphony’
Adam Cullen
Thesis submitted to the National University of Ireland, Maynooth for the degree of
Master of Literature in Music
Head of Department: Professor Fiona Palmer
Department of Music
National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Maynooth
Co. Kildare
Supervisor: Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley
Department of Music
National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Maynooth
Co. Kildare
January 2009

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Abstract
In March 1824 Schubert wrote that he intended to pave his way to a ‗grand
symphony‘ with the composition of certain chamber works. Two difficulties in the
interpretation of Schubert‘s words emerge in the Schubertian literature. Firstly, Brian
Newbould dismisses the likelihood that the chamber works Schubert lists are
preparatory works because they are not sketches or drafts but complete, self-sufficient
pieces. Secondly, Robert Winter discredits the contribution of these chamber works
to the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony – the symphony traditionally understood to be the
work Schubert had in mind in 1824 when he spoke of a ‗grand symphony‘ – saying
that stylistically the ‗Great‘ could have been written approximately two years before
the chamber works were composed. Each of these comments can be reconciled with
Schubert‘s words when we acknowledge two possibilities: that Schubert‘s notion of
what constitutes a ‗preparatory work‘ may be different to Newbould‘s; and that the
symphony Schubert had in mind as of 1824 was not the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony
of 1825-1826, but something different and perhaps much more akin to the chamber
works mentioned in his letter. This thesis considers the possibility that, for Schubert,
a set of self-sufficient masterpieces could be considered preparatory if they shared
some common compositional concern which, in its treatment, matured and gained
substance with each successive experiment. If such is the case with the chamber
works discussed by Schubert, then logically the ‗grand symphony‘ Schubert was
using those works to pave his way towards would share that compositional concern.

iii
It is argued in this thesis that Schubert used chamber works in 1824 to
continue to explore a compositional concern that had occupied him since 1820: the
efficiency of traditional minor-key sonata form rhetoric as dialectic process. It is
demonstrated how Schubert explores and develops this idea through a number of
works that, by virtue of their sharing such a constantly-developing goal, gain a
preparatory quality that does not diminish their status as complete, self-sufficient
works. What is more, this point is found to support the likelihood that the ‗Great‘ C
major Symphony was not the ‗grand symphony‘ Schubert envisioned in 1824 and that
he probably intended at that time to write a minor-key symphony which would
showcase his findings in relation to traditional minor-key sonata form rhetoric as
dialectic process.
Methodology
The first step in a consideration of the implications of Schubert‘s compositional
ambitions, as outlined in his letter to Kupelwieser, was to test whether or not there is
evidence in Schubert‘s music to support the traditional interpretation of those goals.
This was accomplished in two ways: firstly by searching for comparable features
between the chamber works mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter with the ‗Great‘ C
major Symphony; and secondly, by considering the number of corrections made to
the autograph of that symphony – operating under the premise that elements of the
‗Great‘ that seem to have been specifically ‗prepared‘ in earlier works would contain
fewer corrections than elements that were not prepared. Once it has been established

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that the contributions (of various types) to the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony made by
the chamber works in question are fewer in impact or significance than one would
expect of works ‗paving the way‘ to that particular symphony, we consider the
possibility of an ultimately unwritten, alternative ‗grand symphony‘. This liberates
the chamber works of 1824 from the ‗Great‘ and we can examine them on their own
terms to see what compositional concerns they share and work to develop. Although
there may be many, I decided to focus on Schubert‘s treatment of traditional minor-
key sonata form rhetoric as a dialectic process. This examination was informed by
Hali Fieldman‘s writing on that subject and her analysis of the Quartettsatz proposed
an analytical model which was applied to the chamber works under consideration.1
To track Schubert‘s progress – and to appreciate the consistency of his
experimentation – a significant essay in minor-key sonata form, his ‗Unfinished‘ B
minor Symphony of 1822 was similarly examined.
1
Hali Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz and Sonata Form‘s New Way‘, Journal of Musicological
Research, 21 (2002): 99-146 hereafter referred to as Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘.

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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations........................................................................................................v
Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................vii
Introduction: A Letter to Kupelwieser and its Implications.......................................viii
Chapter 1: The 1824 Chamber Works and the ‗Great‘ C Major Symphony, D944......1
Part I: The Validity of a Comparison ........................................................................1
Part II: The Autograph of the ‗Great‘; Testing the Working Method .....................36
Part III: A Change of Direction...............................................................................47
Chapter 2: Sonata Form and Dialectic Process...........................................................57
Chapter 3: The Quartettsatz, D703 (1820) and Fieldman: A Model..........................81
Chapter 4: The ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony, D759 (1822) ............................................126
Chapter 5: The A Minor String Quartet, D804 (1824)..............................................149
Chapter 6: The D Minor String Quartet, No. 14, D810 (1824).................................212
Conclusion: Sonata Form and Preparatory Works....................................................261
Bibliography..............................................................................................................268
Discography ..............................................................................................................278

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List of Illustrations
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bar 21 .........................................................................38
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bars 1-6.......................................................................12
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bars 303-14.................................................................16
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bars 78-80...................................................................37
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bars deleted from coda...............................................39
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, II, bars 8-11 ...................................................................22
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, III, bars /247-54.............................................................28
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, III, bars 89-104..............................................................27
‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, I, bars 114-18 ...................................................13
‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, I, bars 190-94 .................................................129
‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, I, bars 226-37 .................................................131
‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, II, bars 58-64....................................................14
Alternative Structural Readings for the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony..........................23
Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‗Great‘ and ‗Unfinished‘ Symphonies
.................................................................................................................................24
Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony and the A
minor String Quartet ................................................................................................25
Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony and the A
minor String Quartet ................................................................................................24
Comparison of Trio movements from D minor String Quartet and the ‗Great‘ .........29
Folio 88v
of the autograph score of the ‗Great‘ Symphony ........................................42
Octet in F major, III, bars 59-71 .................................................................................27
Octet in F major, VI, bars 173-76 ...............................................................................19
String Quartet in A minor, I, 282-293.......................................................................186
String Quartet in A minor, I, bar 67 compared with bar 230....................................179
String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 1-10.....................................................................144
String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 122-29.................................................................165
String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 14-22...................................................................150
String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 3-6.........................................................................22
String Quartet in B major D112, II, bars 132-34 ..........................................................7

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String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, 26 cancelled bars from between bars 120 and
121 of the Exposition.............................................................................................102
String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 1-2.......................................................86
String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 175-83.................................................93
String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 247-57...............................................110
String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 285-88...............................................111
String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 3-4.......................................................87
String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 8-10.....................................................85
String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 83-91...................................................91
String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 1-14.............................................................198, 205
String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 1-3.......................................................................210
String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 15-20...................................................................218
String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 188-91.................................................................230
String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 299-310...............................................................235
String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 326-41.................................................................237
String Quartet in D minor, III, bars /69-76 .................................................................28
String Quartet in G major, I, bars 374-78 ...................................................................20
Work-list demonstrating number of sonata form movements set in minor keys ........50

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Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley for her
enthusiasm, expertise, diligence, patience and encouragement; the genuine interest
she has shown and the long hours she has put into this work have been truly inspiring
and made me more thorough and confident in my studies. I am grateful for the
helpful comments I received from colleagues when presenting my work at
conferences and I would like to especially thank my family and friends for their
support and, when appropriate, intimidation.

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Introduction: A Letter to Kupelwieser and its Implications
I have tried my hand at several instrumental works, for I wrote two quartets for
violins, viola and ‗cello, and an octet, and I want to write another quartet, in fact,
I intend to pave my way towards [a] grand symphony in that manner [...] 2
Thus wrote Franz Schubert on 31 March 1824 to his friend, the painter, Leopold
Kupelwieser.3
The ‗grand symphony‘ is commonly understood to mean the ‗Great‘ C
major Symphony (D944)4
ever since it was made clear that the ‗Great‘ C major,
previously thought to be composed in 1828, was in fact the long-presumed missing
‗Gastein‘ symphony of c.1825.5
In the recent Cambridge Companion to Schubert
Michael Griffel responds to the above excerpt from Schubert‘s letter:
He [Schubert] wanted to write a grand symphony […] as good as any of
Beethoven‘s, and Schubert was, as he himself said, paving his way toward the
writing of such a work by leading up to it, by ‗practicing,‘ with string quartets
(the A Minor, D804, and D Minor, D810, masterpieces) and an octet (another of
Schubert‘s finest chamber works, D803, modelled on Beethoven‘s Septet,
Op.20).6
Such wholesale acceptance of Schubert‘s words in the Kupelwieser letter is
questioned by Brian Newbould, largely on the basis that the small works are not
sketches or drafts for a symphony but complete, substantial, independent
masterpieces. In his seminal book on Schubert‘s symphonies Newbould wrote:
2
Cited in Maurice J.E. Brown: Schubert: A Critical Biography (London: MacMillan, 1958), 354.
Hereafter referred to as Brown: Schubert: A Critical Biography. Please note that spelling in quotes in
this thesis have been standardised from American to British English, as has terminology such as
‗measure‘ which, for convenience and uniformity, is changed to ‗bar‘.
3
Hereafter referred to as the ‗Kupelwieser letter‘. This sobriquet is intended only to refer to that
portion of the letter to Kupelwieser that is quoted above and any challenges to the practical usefulness
of the ‗Kupelwieser letter‘ are aimed only at this extract and not at any other information contained in
the letter as a whole.
4
We habitually number this symphony his Ninth. On the numbering of Schubert‘s symphonies see L.
Michael Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music: ―strivings after the highest in art‖‘, in The Cambridge
Companion to Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 205 hereafter referred to as
Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘.
5
This ordeal is briefly summarised in Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music,‘ 202.
6
Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 201-202.

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Normally, composers produce individual, self-sufficient works, not chains of
preparatory ‗exercises‘ paving the way for some notional ultimate masterpiece
which may or may not ever come. Works succeed but do not supersede one
another.7
Robert Winter is also dismissive of the musical indebtedness of the ‗Great‘ C major
Symphony to the relevant chamber works of 1824 and goes as far as to claim, ‗I
remain convinced that from a stylistic point of view the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony
could have been written any time after the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony [of 1822, D759].‘8
The apparent divergence of opinion between the stance of Winter and Newbould and
the stance of Griffel may be eased significantly by the examination of two points in
the interpretation of Schubert‘s letter. Firstly, can we be sure the ‗grand symphony‘
Schubert mentions is indeed the ‗Great‘ C major symphony and not some other work
Schubert envisaged as of 1824 but for whatever reason decided not to pursue? If the
‗grand symphony‘ mentioned in the letter is not the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony then
conditions change: Winter‘s dissociation of the ‗Great‘ from the chamber works
mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter no longer undermines Griffel‘s statement that
those chamber works were written with the intention of paving the way to some
unspecified ‗grand symphony‘. Newbould‘s scepticism about the practical efficacy
of Schubert‘s idea of a series of preparatory works – an idea Griffel seemed to accept
– will be soothed if we can show that Newbould‘s and Griffel‘s conceptions of a
series of preparatory works and the duties and characteristics they should entail may
be different from each other. More importantly, Newbould‘s idea of such a technique
7
Brian Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony: A New Perspective (London: Toccata Press, 1992),
207. Hereafter referred to as Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony.
8
Robert Winter: ‗Paper Studies and the Future of Schubert Research‘, in Schubert Studies, ed. by Eva
Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)‘, 211 hereafter
referred to as Winter: ‗Paper Studies‘.

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may be different from Schubert‘s; or at least different from the idea Schubert may
have hoped his letter would communicate.
It is not the aim of this thesis to prove each of the above scholars correct in
their individual theories. The aim is to examine musical implications of Schubert‘s
letter to Kupelwieser, however to do so will prove to be tantamount to tackling those
specific ambiguities in the interpretation of the letter that persistently allow for such
potentially unnecessary divergences of opinion to arise in the first place. This thesis
will consider whether or not we are correct to assume the symphony Schubert
intended to write when he composed his letter to Kupelwieser is indeed the ‗Great‘ C
major Symphony and what Schubert‘s designation of a number of chamber works to
the task of ‗preparing‘ for a grand symphony may have meant to Schubert. This
author believes – and hopes to demonstrate over the course of this thesis in a number
of analyses – that Schubert‘s idea of what constitutes a series of preparatory works is
the notion of a group of self-sufficient works which share a common, forward-
striving purpose or compositional concern that does not necessarily detract from each
work‘s quality, but gains in substance with each successive composition.
The first chapter will start by considering the possibility that the ‗grand
symphony‘ prophesied in Schubert‘s letter might be the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony
and examine what relationship that symphony shares with those chamber works that
we infer from Schubert‘s letter to have been preparatory for it. It will be found that
the results of this examination are inconclusive and, even though certain features of
the ‗Great‘ can be shown to be directly related to the 1824 chamber works, in the
absence of further evidence there is no reason that these works – apart from their

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mention in the Kupelwieser letter – should be singled out from the rest of the
composer‘s oeuvre as particularly bound with the ‗Great‘.9
There is a difficulty for our study with one of the chamber works mentioned
in the letter, the Octet in F major, for it occupies a unique position in the chamber
works of 1824 in terms of its conception.10
As Richard Baker writes:
Schubert composed his Octet in F for strings and woodwind in February 1824, to
a commission from Count Troyer who asked for a work ‗exactly like Beethoven‘s
Septet‘. Apart from adding an extra instrument, Schubert did as he was told,
producing a piece with the same type and number of movements and the same
key structure as Beethoven‘s.11
Due to Count Troyer‘s request of the composer, outlined in the above quote from
Baker, the commissioned octet of 1824 cannot be counted as cathartic of the
symphonic vision that seized Schubert in that year and inspired him to write the
noticeably darker quartets in A minor and D minor. It is true that the A minor and D
minor quartets were commissioned by the Schuppanzigh Quartet but there is no
evidence that Schuppanzigh made any demands as to the nature of the compositions
in the way Count Troyer did and we can assume that the quartets constitute the truest
expression of the ‗grand symphony‘ that Schubert had in mind when he wrote the
1824 letter to Kupelwieser.
Our examination in the first chapter will lead us to considering the possibility
that the 1824 chamber works were never intended to prepare the way for the ‗Great‘
C major Symphony at all but were preparing Schubert for composing an entirely
9
Even this statement assumes the ‗grand symphony‘ mentioned in the letter to Kupelwieser means the
‗Great‘ C major Symphony. If this is eliminated then not even the Kupelwieser letter links the 1824
chamber works with the ‗Great‘.
10
Throughout this thesis the term ‗chamber works of 1824‘ only applies to those chamber works
pertinent to the Kupelwieser letter.
11
Richard Baker: Schubert: A Life in Words and Pictures (London: Little, Brown and Company,
1997), 89.

xii
different symphony which was ultimately never written. In support of this view we
may observe that, according to the letter to Kupelwieser, Schubert intended to write
three quartets to prepare for the writing of a grand symphony12
but the third quartet
was not composed until after the ‗Great‘ had been completed, thus suggesting the
composer‘s plans were not so much completed by the composition of the ‗Great‘ as
they were interrupted by it. Furthermore, the most striking feature common to the
completed quartets mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter (insofar as they might have
been considered preparatory works for the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony) is that they
are both set in minor-keys. Major and minor-mode compositions present the
composer with different challenges and these are nowhere more evident than in
sonata form movements. Due to the unique difficulties inherent in writing minor-key
sonata forms13
it is most likely that Schubert‘s act of setting his preparatory music in
minor-keys (when he was not obliged by his commissioners to do otherwise) is an
indication that the ‗grand symphony‘ Schubert was planning, as of March 1824, was
to be a minor-key symphony.
Another avenue is opened up to us: we may legitimately ask if Schubert‘s idea
of a ‗grand symphony‘, at the time of writing the Kupelwieser letter, had any kind of
impact on the chamber works that were born in the shadow of its original conception
and were offered to the service of bringing Schubert closer to realising that
inspiration. We may do this by comparing Schubert‘s handling of minor-key sonata
12
Brown: Schubert: A Critical Biography, 354.
13
William Caplin: Classical Form: a theory of formal functions for the instrumental music of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, reissued 2001), 195 hereafter referred
to as Caplin: Classical Form. These difficulties will be discussed in detail in Chapter 2.

xiii
forms in the A minor and D minor quartets with his most contemporary (and
significant) essays in the field written prior to 1824 to see if the Kupelwieser letter
marks any change of attitude or technique. It may be that Schubert had the same
vision of a grand symphony as early as 1820 but did not mention it until he had
completed some works with that in mind. In which case we may even find that works
written before 1824 that were not mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter were also part
of that same preparatory arc.
Following my investigations in Chapter 1 of the connections between the
chamber works mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter and the ‗Great‘ C major
Symphony, my second chapter will explore the possibility that the potential concern
shared by the quartets in A minor and D minor which could afford them a joint,
forward-striving preparatory function is a concern with minor-key sonata forms as
dialectic processes. Chapter 3 will build on this idea – and establish a context from
which to appreciate Schubert‘s experiments in the quartets of 1824 – by examining
his most recent quartet (the Quartettsatz of 1820) and its relation to the concerns over
minor-key dialectics shared by the quartets in A minor and D minor. My analysis of
Schubert‘s Quartettsatz and his attitude to such a concern in this chapter owes much
to the work of Hali Fieldman and is used as a model for the analytical methodology
adopted throughout the rest of the thesis.14
Four years pass between the composition
of the Quartettsatz and the next quartets and so that gap is bridged by a discussion of
Schubert‘s attitude to minor-key sonata forms as dialectics in his most significant
14
Hali Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz and Sonata Form‘s New Way‘, Journal of Musicological
Research, 21 (2002): 99-146 hereafter referred to as Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘.

xiv
work from the intervening period, the first movement of his ‗Unfinished‘ B minor
Symphony of 1822, to be discussed in Chapter 4. Finally, having established
Schubert‘s thinking and trend of development in relation to the topic we already
suspect links the quartets of 1824 as sharing a joint, preparatory function we turn to
an examination of minor-key sonata form as dialectic in those works, the A minor
and D minor quartets, in Chapters 5 and 6.
If the quartets of 1824 can be shown to exhibit a common concern that is
experimented with or developed over time, without being to the detriment of those
quartets as self-sufficient pieces of music, we will have uncovered a genuinely
preparatory feature of those works that does not reduce them to the level of the
sketches or drafts so disagreeable to Newbould.15
If that shared concern is not taken
advantage of by, or clearly constructed to be of benefit to the ‗Great‘ C major
Symphony (perhaps by yielding a result that in its usefulness is not limited
exclusively to sonata forms in minor keys) then it is all the more likely that the ‗grand
symphony‘ Schubert predicts in his letter of 1824 is not the ‗Great‘ C major
Symphony. First, however, we shall start from the position of a traditional
interpretation of the Kupelwieser letter, see how it holds up to various criticisms
found in the literature, and subject it to close scrutiny.
15
Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony, 207.

1
Chapter 1: The 1824 Chamber Works and the ‘Great’ C
Major Symphony, D944
Part I: The Validity of a Comparison
In 1982, Robert Winter wrote, ‗I remain convinced that from a stylistic point of view
the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony could have been written any time after the
‗Unfinished‘ Symphony [of 1822, D759].‘1
This statement denies any contribution to
the artistic success of Schubert‘s ‗Great‘ Symphony made by the Octet in F major and
the String Quartets in A minor and D minor, all composed in 1824. That these
chamber works mentioned in Schubert‘s letter to Kupelwieser make use of orchestral
effects and observe an expansion of form should not be denied.2
Nor should it be
denied that such features in the chamber works of February and March 1824 point to
a grand symphonic style.3
In light of Winter‘s statement, however, one is obliged to
question whether or not the composition of the ‗preparatory‘ works mentioned in
Schubert‘s letter was an essential prerequisite for the completion of the ‗Great‘ C
major Symphony, in particular, as opposed to any other symphony.
1
Winter: ‗Paper Studies‘, 211.
2
The orchestral elements in these chamber works have received comment in many publications.
General opinion on these elements has remained essentially unaltered over years fraught with
musicological upheaval in Schubertian scholarship. For example, compare Homer Ulrich: Chamber
Music: The Growth and Practice of an Intimate Art (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948),
292 (hereafter referred to as Ulrich: Chamber Music) with Robert Winter (text), M. J. E. Brown and
Eric Sams (work-list): ‗Schubert, Franz, §2 (vi): Works: Chamber music‘ in New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie, exec. ed. John Tyrrell, 2nd
edn, vol. 22 (London:
Macmillan, 2001), 685-686 hereafter referred to as Winter, Brown and Sams: New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians.
3
Stephen E. Hefling and David S. Tartakoff: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, Routledge Studies
in Musical Genres, gen. ed. R. Larry Todd (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 79. Hereafter
referred to as Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music.

2
Features that qualify for legitimate comparison
When establishing links between Schubert‘s major chamber works of 1824 and his
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, it will be of little benefit to us to point out those traits
which are evident in various works throughout his career. In an essay on the
possibilities and limitations of stylistic criticism, Paul Badura-Skoda points out that
‗stylistic idiosyncrasies of different periods are less clearly defined with Schubert
than with other composers.‘4
He adds that ‗one repeatedly finds almost inexplicable
anticipations and reversions.‘5
We are cautioned by Badura-Skoda to temper any
conclusions we might draw from stylistic similarities between almost-coeval works
when the techniques in question are to be found in different periods throughout
Schubert‘s career:6
Between the middle and last stylistic periods it is especially difficult to make any
hard and fast distinctions, there is, rather, a gradual change of style [...] it would
be a mistake to assign to a particular period idiosyncrasies of style which are
found throughout Schubert‘s oeuvre, or at least which extend beyond a single
period.7
It must be stressed, however, that there is a late style in Schubert.8
Applying this
condition to Badura-Skoda‘s general warning, we arrive at a more refined analytical
standpoint; we may draw conclusions based on stylistic similarities between almost-
contemporary works, but only when the techniques in question can be deemed
4
Paul Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations of Stylistic Criticism in the dating of Schubert‘s
―Great‖ C Major Symphony‘, Schubert Studies, ed. by Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 188. Hereafter referred to as Badura-Skoda:
‗Possibilities and Limitations‘.
5
Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 188.
6
Ibid., 188ff.
7
Ibid., 188 and 189.
8
Christopher H. Gibbs: The Life of Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 106 and
Lorraine Byrne Bodley: ‗Late style and the paradoxical poetics of the Schubert-Berio Renderings‘, in
The Unknown Schubert, ed. by Barbara M. Reul and Lorraine Byrne Bodley (England: Ashgate
Publishing, 2008), 235-38.

3
representative of this single, late, creative period and not of various periods
throughout Schubert‘s career. Consequently, this chapter will omit discussion of
traits so typically ‗Schubertian‘ that they can be said to permeate more than one
period of his creativity. One is tempted to include in this category his use of three-
key expositions and cyclical composition, but such assumptions require qualification
beyond simply listing their presence in works from different periods; we must first be
sure that there is not a late approach to these techniques not normally considered
exclusive to the late style.
1. Cyclical Composition
According to Martin Chusid, cyclical composition, in its focused use in 1824, should
be considered peculiar to the chamber works in question as a specific device prepared
for use in the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony.9
Chusid notes that ‗the Octet and the
Quartets in A minor and D minor, two impressive compositions for piano duet […]
Divertissement à la Hongroise, and the Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano [… all]
display cyclic elements.‘10
An article by Miriam K. Whaples published four years
later, however, highlights concentrated and maturely executed instances of this
technique in Schubert‘s early years and thus extends Schubert‘s use of the device far
beyond the period specific to our study.11
9
See Martin Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Cyclic Compositions of 1824‘ (in Miscellanea), Acta Musicologica,
36/Fasc. 1 (1964), 37-45. Hereafter Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Cyclic Compositions‘.
10
Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Cyclic Compositions‘, 37.
11
See Miriam K. Whaples: ‗On Structural Integration in Schubert‘s Instrumental Works‘ (in
Miscellanea), Acta Musicologica, 40/Fasc. 2/3. (1968), 186-195.

4
2. Three-Key Expositions
Perhaps the most thorough examination of Schubert‘s use of the three-key exposition
may be found in James Webster‘s ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First
Maturity.‘12
Webster cites works relevant to our study to demonstrate various
features of Schubert‘s style. However, nowhere in his study does he address Winter‘s
claim that the composition of the octet and the quartets in A minor and D minor were
necessary preparatory exercises for the comparable features he notes in the ‗Great‘ C
major Symphony. The following information is a quick summary of the facts
observed by Webster relevant to our investigation and considered in the light of the
parameters for investigation we have established.
Although the use of three-key expositions in Schubert is found chiefly after
1820 (e.g. in the ‗Great‘,13
octet,14
D minor quartet,15
Grand Duo16
), early examples
of this technique can be found in the String Quartet in B of 1814, Symphony No. 2,
and the B major Sonata. In the ‗Great‘, the D minor quartet, and the octet, the keys in
12
James Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 19th
-Century Music, 1/2
(1978), 18-35. Hereafter referred to as Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First
Maturity‘.
13
Franz Schubert: Neue Schubert-Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Herausgegeben von der Internationalen
Schubert-Gesellschaft, Serie V: Orchesterwerke Band 4 Sinfonie Nr.8 in C Teil a Walther Dürr,
Michael Kube, Walburga Litschauer (Wien: Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel, 2003).
14
Franz Schubert: Octet for Two Violins, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass, Clarinet, Horn and
Bassoon in F major, D803 (London: Eulenberg No.60).
15
Schubert-Gesellschaft, Serie VI: Kammermusik Band 5 Streichquartette III Verlegt von Werner
Aderhold, Editionsleitung Walther Dürr, Arnold Feil (London: Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel, 1989), 50.
16
Schubert-Gesellschaft, Serie VII: Klaviermusik Band 2 Werke für Klavier zu vier Händen Vorgelegt
von Christa Landon, Editionsleitung Walther Dürr, Arnold Feil, Christa Landon (London: Bärenreiter-
Verlag Kassel, 1978), 3-66.

5
the double second groups are closely related,17
but this is also the case in the
Quartettsatz (1820). As Webster writes, ‗A crucial aspect of Schubert‘s double
second group is that the subsequent modulatory passage to the dominant usually
refers back to the tonic.‘18
While this is common to the ‗Great‘, the octet, the D
minor quartet and the Grand Duo, it is also evident in the Quartettsatz.
Two aspects of Schubert‘s handling of the three-key exposition, however,
may perhaps be considered examples of approaches being tested in chamber works
from 1824 before being put to use in the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony. Firstly,
according to Webster, the pianissimo trombone passage in the ‗Great‘, in which a
move to V of VI is overthrown with a ‗tonicisation‘ of iii (the key in which the
second group opened), has the same function as a point in the octet (bars 113-122)
where a remote key (Neapolitan D) is touched in an overall diatonic plan.19
Secondly, regarding how Schubert opens his second groups, Webster points out one
distinct similarity between the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony and a chamber work in
question. In the ‗Great‘ and the octet the second group begins with a new theme ‗in a
diatonically related minor-key which gives the appearance of being firmly
established; nevertheless, the first period seems unable to close without modulating to
the dominant.‘20
17
Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 27-28.
18
Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 30.
19
Ibid., 28.
20
Ibid., 29.

6
It appears that both three-key expositions and cyclical composition may
legitimately be included in the category of traits common to works outside the late
period, but from the approach to three-key expositions in the late period we may note
those two instances mentioned above as evidence of a contribution from some of the
chamber works mentioned in Schubert‘s letter to the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony.
Let us now consider two features of Schubert‘s ‗Great‘ C major Symphony
that are salient characteristics of his last five years, i.e. features that contribute to a
definition of his late style, and consider whether or not they were absent from, or
ineffectively used in, the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony (thus warranting the interpolation
of extra, ‗preparatory‘ pieces before writing the ‗Great‘). These features which mark
Schubert‘s last five years are marked an increased use of Neapolitan relationships and
increasingly sparse textures in his scoring.21
Neapolitan Relationships
Brian Newbould claims that Schubert finds ‗expressive potential‘ in two particular
uses of the chord.22
‗First, he likes to use it as a doorway into the Neapolitan key
itself [as an example, Newbould cites both the opening of the ‗Arpeggione‘ Sonata of
1824 and the point in the slow movement of the ‗Great‘ when the explosive climactic
passage gives way to hushed pizzicato strings …] Second, Schubert enlarges the
scope of the Neapolitan-sixth concept by sometimes using the minor version of the
21
Maurice J. E. Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘, The Musical Times, 1212/85 (1944),
43-44. Hereafter referred to as Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘.
22
Brian Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man (London: Victor Gollancz, 1997), 395 hereafter
referred to as Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man.

7
chord,‘ an example of this in the D minor quartet will be discussed below.23
Of the
examples in the first movement of the Grand Duo Newbould writes:
The transition is organised around the minor Neapolitan C (D) minor. Shortly
after the G-major section is under way, a new outburst on E leads in bar 87 to its
minor Neapolitan, G minor, and to the variant theme originally introduced in E
major.24
Earlier Maurice Brown claimed that, ‗the early songs and instrumental pieces contain
very few examples,‘ and illustrates a moment from an 1814 string quartet in which a
Neapolitan Sixth resolves as normal to a dominant seventh in root position but
doubles the flattened second of the scale, a doubling one would not expect as standard
(Example 1.1).25
The claim that the Neapolitan is a feature of the late style, then, is
not to say that Schubert first incorporated the Neapolitan Sixth into his music in the
late period, but simply that he characteristically used it more frequently.
Example 1.1. Schubert: String Quartet in B major D112, II, bars 132-34
As Brown goes on to write, ‗from 1820 onwards, the chord and its implications
occupy a larger and larger place in Schubert‘s musical thought, until in his later years
23
Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 395.
24
Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 28.
25
Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘, 43.

8
they begin to dominate his whole harmonic approach.‘26
It is interesting to note that
this article was written at a time when it was still believed that the ‗Great‘ C major
Symphony was written in 1828, thus the ‗Great‘ is included in Brown‘s statement
when he says, ‗the entire output of his [Schubert‘s] last year, ranging from the Mass
in E flat to the smallest of the ―Swansong‖ cycle, is shot through with the strong
colouring of Neapolitan harmony.‘27
The fact that the ‗Great‘ was actually written in
1825 does not diminish the importance of the Neapolitan chord in the work,
particularly in the slow movement and the Trio.
Considering the double second group as it appears in the octet and the D
minor quartet, Webster writes:
When the first part of the second group appears in VI or vi, the subsequent move
to the dominant mimics a move from the Neapolitan (II) to a major tonic […]
Schubert often inserts a purple patch within the later second group section, in a
key which has the effect of complementing the other keys of the exposition.
When the overall plan is diatonic, the purple patch touches on an appropriate
remote key [… such as] the Neapolitan D in the Octet (bars 113-22).28
A cursory glance at the scores of the ‗Unfinished‘ and the ‗Great‘ C major
symphonies seems to demonstrate the increased use of the Neapolitan chord and
Neapolitan modulations, with the Neapolitan chord appearing rarely in the two
completed movements of the ‗Unfinished.‘29
However, closer examination of the
‗Unfinished‘ Symphony shows that the Neapolitan chord is a fundamental feature of
the structure of that symphony‘s first movement. In fact, in Chapter 4 it will be
shown that a single Neapolitan relationship implied early in the work drives the piece.
26
Ibid., 43.
27
Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘, 43.
28
Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 27, 28.
29
For example, bar 194 in the first movement.

9
To borrow James Webster‘s words, used to describe a different piece, ‗as so often,
Schubert uses the first significant tonal event in a movement to generate key
relationships- and hence form- on the largest scale.‘30
For now suffice it to say that
the first movement of the ‗Unfinished‘ demonstrates a subtle, mature control of, and
approach to, the Neapolitan chord by which key-areas are determined and the
movement‘s sonata-form is reinforced. This approach is evident in Schubert‘s
compositional style even before 1822. Harold Truscott pushes further back than the
‗Unfinished‘ to the overture in E minor of 1819, and claims:
The whole overture, as a result of tonality, harmony and the double tempo, is in
suspension, depending on perpetually leaning harmonies (nearly always
Neapolitan) resolving on to chords which change before they can be asserted, so
that only at one or two spaced out points is there any suggestion of a momentary
finality. The proportions of this work are almost exactly those of the first
movement of the late C major Symphony.31
Indeed, Schubert‘s command of the Neapolitan seems sufficiently mature in the
‗Unfinished‘ and the overture in E minor to support Winter‘s theory that, stylistically,
the ‗Great‘ could have been composed any time after the ‗Unfinished.‘ Let us now
consider Schubert‘s use of the Neapolitan chord in one of the chamber works
composed between the ‗Unfinished‘ and the ‗Great‘ C major symphonies.
If we examine the first movement of the D minor String Quartet, we will see
that bars 328 and 334 feature, for the first time in the movement, the Neapolitan
chord in the minor form (Example 1.2).32
However, this particular observation seems
30
Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 20 where he is discussing the
String Quartet in G, D887.
31
Harold Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert (1797-1828)‘, in The Symphony i: Haydn to Dvořák, ed. by Robert
Simpson (England: Penguin Books, 1966), 200 hereafter referred to as Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘.
32
With regard to the increased use of the Neapolitan in Schubert‘s late style, we may note several
appearances of the Neapolitan chord in the final movement of the D minor String Quartet. Instances
include bars 575, 577, 594, 596, 598, and 599. However, these are all in the major form.

10
to tell us more about Schubert‘s attitude to experimentation in chamber music in 1824
than it does about any direct influence of this particular string quartet on the ‗Great‘ C
major Symphony. Indeed, the use of these minor chords is the result of a dialectical
process too specific to the work in question to translate to another work in the same
way, as will be elaborated upon in Chapter 6, and therefore appears to agree with
Winter‘s claim that the ‗Great‘ C major was not indebted to the 1824 chamber works.
It follows that we must consider that second salient feature of Schubert‘s late style
mentioned above if we are to challenge Winter‘s claim.
Example 1.2. Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 328-37

12
Sparse Textures
A salient feature of Schubert‘s late style, as ‗Der Leiermann‘ of the Winterreise
shows, is his mastery of musical economy; a sparseness of texture.33
This sparseness
is particularly evident in, for example, the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, D944, and the
String Quintet in C major, D956. This sparseness might also be observed in the
Seventh Symphony, but both this symphony‘s method of composition and the fact
that it is unfinished forbid us from concluding that Schubert would have left the
scoring quite so sparse had he completed the work. Interestingly, Newbould uses the
term ‗spaciousness‘ to describe both sparseness of texture and, in the ‗Great‘ C major
Symphony, spaciousness ‗implied by multiplication.34
For Newbould, tiny rhythmic
cells proliferate in myriad repetitions, energising broad phrases which themselves
multiply into huge paragraphs.‘35
The first movement of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony is striking for the
sparse texture of its opening; a daring statement in symphonic writing at this time
(Example 1.3). In the scoring of the first movement of the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony,
however, there are several equally confident instances of sparseness of texture.
Examples in the first movement include the eight bar opening theme on just the lower
strings and the extended return of that theme at bar 114 which is coupled with a
daring exploitation of pitch-space (Example 1.4) and from the second movement of
the ‗Unfinished‘ we may cite the line on the first violins at bar 60 (Example 1.5).36
33
My thanks to Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley for this example.
34
Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony, 226.
35
Ibid., 226.
36
This line recurs at bars 201, 280 and 290.

13
Example 1.3. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, I, bars 1-6

14
Example 1.4. Schubert: ‘Unfinished’ Symphony in B minor, I, bars 114-18

15
Example 1.5. Schubert: ‘Unfinished’ Symphony in B minor, II, bars 58-64

16
Such examinations of Neapolitan relationships and sparse textures in Schubert‘s
scoring shows that their presence in the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony is both mature and
frequent enough to render unnecessary further practice of these techniques in smaller
works before their employment in the ‗Great.‘ However, examination of the above
traits has done little to refute Winter‘s conviction that the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony
could have been written any time after the ‗Unfinished‘ and so it is at this point that
we turn to features that are less general and more peculiar to the ‗Great‘, examining
whether or not these features can best be explained by similar occurrences in the octet
in F major and the quartets in A minor and D minor. The noteworthy features of the
‗Great‘ that will be discussed below are tackled in order, i.e. with respect to the
movements of the symphony in which they occur. Some will support and some will
challenge Robert Winter‘s stance.
Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, First Movement
One such peculiarity is the presence of a whole-tone scale in the first movement of
the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony. It occurs between bars 304-15 (Example 1.6, some
of the many examples are marked in on the provided score) and again in the first and
second violins in bars 328-39.

17

20
Use of the whole-tone scale can also be found between bars 172-76 in the finale of
the Octet of 1824 (Example 1.7a).37
The use of this scale in the Octet is aurally more
jarring than its occurrence in the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony – an instance where it
might be possible to show Schubert‘s ‗practicing‘ a particular technique in a chamber
work before using it in his ‗grand symphony.‘
Example 1.7a. Schubert: Octet in F major, VI, bars 173-76
According to Badura-Skoda the whole-tone scale is also to be found in the first
movement of the G major String Quartet (D887) between bars 374 and 378 (Example
1.7b).38
37
Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 199ff.
38
Ibid., 200.

21
Example 1.7b. Schubert: String Quartet in G major, I, bars 374-78
Here the whole-tone scale is not used extensively as a scale in a melodic sense and so
it is of little use to point out melodic instances in the example quoted above, rather
the passage is constructed from notes available as part of a whole-tone scale and
although it is upset by some semitonal relations, the overall flavour of the passage
may be said to be derived from the whole-tone scale. It is suggested by Ekkehart
Kroher that sketches for the G major quartet were drafted prior to the composition of
the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony. Kroher writes ‗nothing came of this [the G major
quartet] in 1824, although sketches for the String Quartet in G major, D887 go back

22
to that year.‘39
Robert Winter anticipated this claim when he wrote of the same
quartet that ‗Schubert wrote a complete autograph in eleven days, but […] he surely
drafted [it] beforehand.‘40
It is possible that the instance of the whole-tone scale in the quartet in G
major can be considered a contribution to the ‗Great‘, as indeed might the classical
nature of the quartet itself, if the first movement was sketched prior to 1825.
Contemplating the Tenth Symphony sketches (D936 A), Winter considers that ‗to
commence work on a large-scale composition with its interior movements would
have been as foreign to Schubert as to Beethoven.‘41
Therefore, even if the sketches
do not draft the entire quartet, they would certainly draft at least some of the first
movement, however, it is not certain that these sketches even exist. The Neue
Schubert-Ausgabe and New Grove Works-list acknowledge no such sketches and the
latter suggests that the autograph was written between the 20th
and 30th
June 1826.42
Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, Second Movement
The Second movement‘s A minor theme begins on the main beat (rare for Schubert in
that key) but he did anticipate this in the A minor quartet. Leo Black observes that it
is rare for Schubert to begin one of his A minor themes on a downbeat and on the
fifth scale degree yet the A minor melodies that open the second movement of the
39
Ekkehart Kroher, trans. Derek Yeld, sleeve notes for Melos Quartett: CD Harmonia Mundi France,
HMA 1951408 HM 31, 1992 and 2001.
40
41
42
Neue Schubert-Ausgabe Streichquartett in G, D887 op. post. 16, ed. by Werner Aderhold (London:
Bärenreiter-Verlag Karl Vötterle GmbH & Co. KG, 1989). Winter, Brown and Sams: New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 685-89.

23
‗Great‘ and first movement of the A minor String Quartet contain both of these
features (Example 1.8a and 1.8b). Yet, as Black goes on to point out, ‗the rhythm
and motion are different, floating [in the quartet] rather than marching.‘43
Example 1.8a. Schubert: String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 3-6
Example 1.8b. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, II, bars 8-11
There are convincing structural connections between the chamber works of March
1824 and the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, one of which occurs in the second
movement, the other will be discussed when we come to the Trio. Contemplating the
slow movement of the ‗Great‘ C major, Beth Shamgar offers the following two
structural readings (Table 1.9):44
43
Leo Black: Franz Schubert: Music and Belief (Great Britain: The Boydell Press, 2003), 133.
Hereafter referred to as Black: Music and Belief.
44
Beth Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy: Some Thoughts on Exposition-Recap. Form‘ The
Journal of Musicology, A Musicological Bouquet: Essays on Style, Sources, and Performance in
Honor of Bathia Churgin, 1/18 (2001), 153 hereafter referred to as Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic
Legacy‘. The key to Shamgar‘s symbols is as follows: P-primary theme, T-transition between first and
second key areas, S-secondary theme, (S)T-transition between secondary and closing theme, K-closing
theme, NK-new closing theme, RT-retransition from the end of the development to the recapitulation,
(K)T-transition from closing theme to coda.

24
Table 1.9. Alternative Structural Readings for the ‘Great’ C major Symphony
The ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, II: Exposition-Recapitulation Form:
Intro Exposition Recapitulation Coda
P T S K RT P X S K K(T) P
a a/A F d/F a/A A f/A a
1 8 89 93 137 145 160 224 267 311 317 330
The ‗Great C major Symphony, II: Sonata-Rondo Form:
Intro Exposition R Devel. Inverted Recap. (Coda)
P T S K RT P X S K K(T) P
a a/A F d/F a/A A f/A a
1 8 89 93 137 145 160 224 267 311 317 330
Here in Shamgar, the ‗X‘ symbol represents a departure from the normal procedures
of a recapitulation into something of a development section, a section Charles Rosen
would define as a ‗secondary development.‘45
It is this feature that makes the form of
the second movement of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony ambiguous and allows
Shamgar to read it as either a movement in exposition-recapitulation form,46
or as a
sonata-rondo.47
Shamgar suggests, however, that neither reading is fully satisfactory
and in support of her argument quotes Brian Newbould‘s comment that ‗any attempt
to relate the resulting form [of the slow movement of the ―Great‖ C major] to
traditional schemes will lead to the conclusion that it is a hybrid [form].‘48
In
development of Newbould‘s ideas, Shamgar offers the following solution:
45
Charles Rosen: Sonata Forms (United States: W. W. Norton, 1988), 108 hereafter referred to as
Rosen: Sonata Forms.
46
Shamgar offers an explanation for what is meant by exposition-recapitulation form in Shamgar:
‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 151 f.n. 3 and 153 f.n. 6. In these footnotes she also lists and comments
on some other names given to this form, e.g. slow-movement form, sonata form without development,
and abbreviated sonata form.
47
Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 153.
48
Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 168 f.n. 25.

25
[...] the slow movement of the ―Great‖ C major seems to proceed according to
two different formal models. The exposition-recap. form of the ―Unfinished‖
supplies a convincing reading for the first half of the movement, that is, until we
enter the recapitulation. Then all formal parallels to the ―Unfinished‖ collapse,
and the kind of sonata-rondo features we [see] in the A minor Quartet take over
(with, of course, some important differences) [see Tables 1.10a, 1.10b, and
1.10c].49
Table 1.10a. Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‘Unfinished’
Symphony and the A minor String Quartet
The ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony, II: Exposition-Recapitulation Form:
Exposition Recapitulation Coda
P (binary) T S+variants RT P
(binary)
T S+variants NK T P
AA1
BA2
E c, D, c mod E a, A, a E E
1 60 64 130 142 201 205 268 280
The String Quartet in A minor, II: Exposition-Recapitulation Form:
Exposition Recap. (Development) Coda
P (binary) T S K RT P
(binary)
X S K RT
ABB ABB1
C G C mod. C C
1 21 25 37 46 53 76 93 103 110 118
Table 1.10b. Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‘Great’ and
‘Unfinished’ Symphonies
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, Second Movement:
Introduction Exposition
P T S K RT
a a/A F d/F
1 8 89 93 137 145
‗Unfinished‘ Symphony, Second Movement:
Exposition
P T S + variants RT
E c, D, c mod.
49
Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 157. On page 152, Shamgar explains, ‗we are not trying to
propose a developmental model.‘ But if we are to accommodate Schubert‘s letter to Kupelwieser we
must consider the possibility that a developmental model is, to some degree, at work through the slow
movements of D667, D759, D804 and D944.

26
1 60 64 130
Table 1.10c. Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‘Great’ C major
Symphony and the A minor String Quartet
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, Second Movement:
Recapitulation Development Inverted Recapitulation Coda
P X S K (K)T P
a/A A f/A a
160 224 267 311 317 330
String Quartet in A minor, Second Movement:
Recapitulation Development Coda
P X S K RT
C mod. C C
53 76 93 103 110 118
Another feature of the second movement of the ‗Great‘ that has attracted the attention
of both analysts and Schubertians is the large, unexpected climax at bars 226-67. For
an explanation of the unpredictable shift of mood this climax presents we should note
that much has been written about ‗two natures‘ in Schubert, occasionally with
reference being made to cyclothemia (a mild form of manic-depression which
Elizabeth Norman McKay believes penetrates his musical output).50
Indeed, from the
work of Elizabeth McKay we might reasonably infer that psychological reasons are
responsible for some such musical ballistics. McKay argues that an inherent
50
See Elizabeth N. McKay: Franz Schubert: A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), §6
(hereafter referred to as McKay: Franz Schubert) and Hugh MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic
Temper‘, The Musical Times, Schubert anniversary Issue, 1629/119 (1978), 949-952 (hereafter
referred to as MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic Temper‘). James Webster takes issue with attaching
biographical details to aspects of the music we find difficult to explain. See James Webster: ‗Music,
Pathology, Sexuality, Beethoven, Schubert‘ (in Commentary), 19th-Century Music, Schubert: Music,
Sexuality, Culture, 1/17 (1993), 91.

27
cyclothemia exacerbated by syphilis explains an increased frequency of sudden
outbursts in the instrumental music of Schubert‘s late years.51
Occasional examples
can be found in the early period (for instance, the String Quartet in B of 1812), but
the increased frequency of such climactic explosions in the late period can be
appreciated by observing the slow movements of the String Quartets in A minor and
G major, the String Quintet in C and the Octet.
If it is not acceptable to take the sudden outbursts often present in Schubert‘s
instrumental music as traits indicative of, and explicable by, cyclothemia, we rule out
one of the four possible explanations for such musical eruptions more convincingly
offered by Hugh MacDonald.52
MacDonald‘s remaining explanations invite us to
view the sudden climaxes as either ‗part of the dynamic flux of all Classical and
Romantic music, with violent outbursts acting as formal, explicable elements‘; not to
view them as evidence of dark, uncontrollable elements in Schubert‘s nature bursting
in to and out from his music, but ‗as the expression of them [dark elements] in an
artful and literary way‘; or finally, that the outbursts are simply ‗violent musical
events‘ to be considered ‗in terms of other obsessional features of his music,
particularly modulation and rhythm.‘53
If psychological reasons do not present a
comprehensible musical reading and we are to consider Schubert‘s violent musical
outbursts in the light of any of the alternative explanations MacDonald suggests, we
51
McKay: Franz Schubert, 139 and 148.
52
MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic Temper‘, 951.
53
Ibid., 951-952.

28
might infer the following as evidence of a musical development taking place
throughout the works preceding 1825 and reaching its zenith in the ‗Great‘:
The most violent of all passages in Schubert occurs in the Great C major
Symphony D944, bars 226-267 in the slow movement [...] its orchestral force is
demonic and of all climaxes in Schubert it is the only one which seeks and finds
its own violent resolution. The climactic two bars, when the harmony shifts up a
semitone, give the climax a sense of completion which no other similar passages
have.54
If the explanation for the outbursts is to be purely musical, this observation may be
used as evidence of a development in Schubert‘s compositional style. However,
McKay argues well that the outbursts might really be a symptom of a psychological
disorder. If we are to accept McKay‘s view, interpretive difficulties arise as we could
easily be witnessing the development of Schubert‘s struggle with cyclothemia
through his music as much as the development of a technique. This ambiguity limits
the usefulness of the above observation to our study.
Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, Third Movement: Scherzo, bars 1-238
Maurice Brown and George Grove have both spotted in the scherzo of the octet the
thematic foreshadowing of a melody from the scherzo of the ‗Great‘ (Example 1.11a
and 1.11b).55
Example 1.11a. Schubert: Octet in F major, III, bars 59-71
54
MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic Temper‘, 950-951.
55
Maurice Brown: Essays on Schubert (London: MacMillan, 1966), 42-43, hereafter referred to as
Brown: Essays on Schubert. George Grove: ‗Schubert‘s Great Symphony in C, No. 10‘, The Musical
Times, 738/45 (1904), 527.

29
Example 1.11b. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, III, bars 89-104
The similarities, which include the melodic contour, the crescendo, repeats and the
semitone modulation, are obvious. It is among the most overt foreshadowings of the
‗Great‘ to be found in the 1824 chamber works but it is difficult to say whether
Schubert is preparing himself for the ‗Great‘ in this example or if he is simply
quoting the Octet.
Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, Third Movement: Trio, bars 239-404
Maurice Brown was, in fact, the first to propose that the Trio of the ‗Great‘ C major
Symphony was modelled on the Trio of the D minor quartet. In 1966 Brown wrote,
‗the whole conception of the quartet section was expanded and amplified in the
symphony.‘56
Brown mentions a transition from D major to D minor and the use of
the rhythmic pattern in the inner parts (Example 1.12a and 1.12b) as indicators of
this:
Example 1.12a. Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, III, bars /69-76
Example 1.12b. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, III, bars /247-54
56
Brown: Essays on Schubert, 45.

30
Fifty years after Brown‘s essay was written we may demonstrate this connection
further.57
In development of his ideas my Table 1.13 shows the structure of the D
minor quartet to be AA1
BA2
B2
A3
and the structure of the ‗Great‘ C major to be
AA1
BA2
A1
AB.
Table 1.13. Comparison of Trio movements from D minor String Quartet and
the ‘Great’
Quartet: A A1
B A2
B2
A3
Duration
in bars:
16 16 16 16 16 16
‗Great‘: A A1
B A2
A1
A (RT) B
Duration
in bars:
16 16 (+4
bar link)
12 48 16 8 16 12
‗Great‘ C major Symphony‘s Trio Structure as Ternary Form:
A (Repeat) B (Repeat) A1
(Repeat)
Comparing the length of those sections labelled in each work as A2
, we may note that
Schubert expands the length of the A2
section in the Trio of the ‗Great‘ until it
occupies, proportionately, three times more of the movement‘s duration than did the
equivalent section in the Trio of the D minor quartet. Consequently, the A2
section in
the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony is large enough to be deemed the central section in a
ternary form movement. A striking similarity of procedure between the D minor
57

31
quartet and the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony can be seen in the relationship between
those sections in the Trios labelled A and A1
.58
In each work, the A section contains the melody in the top voice. In each A1
section the melody is taken over by lower voices and the top voice adopts a new,
embellishing figure. The simple embellishment evident in the flute part in the A1
section of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony is less elaborate than the quaver passage
used to embellish the A1
section of the D minor quartet; the latter embellishment lulls
the ear into the false impression that we are in a B section and, perhaps purposefully,
obscures the form. Consequently, we observe Schubert experimenting with a specific
technique in the quartet in D minor prior to its employment in the ‗Great‘ C major
Symphony.
Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, Fourth Movement
Another feature of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony is the degree to which its finale has
been recognised as successful, an accomplishment many of his works did not attain
so brilliantly: according to William McNaught, ‗Schubert was disposed to lower his
standard a little on coming to the fourth movement of a symphony or chamber
work,‘59
and Edward T. Cone claims, ‗it is to his finales [...] that his reputation for
rambling redundancy is due.‘60
Though much revision has been made of past
58
In the D minor Quartet, ‗A‘ refers to bars /69-84 and ‗A1
‘ refers to bars /85-100 of the Trio. In the
‗Great‘ C major Symphony, ‗A‘ refers to bars /247-262 and ‗A1
‘ refers to bars /263-278 of the Trio.
59
William McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert (1797-1828)‘, The Symphony, ed. by Ralph Hill (England:
Penguin, 1949), 137 hereafter referred to as McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert‘.
60
Edward T. Cone: ‗Schubert‘s Beethoven‘ The Musical Quarterly, Special Issue Celebrating the
Bicentennial of the Birth of Beethoven, 4/56 (1970), 787 hereafter referred to as Cone: ‗Schubert‘s
Beethoven‘.

32
prejudices in Schubert scholarship,61
criticisms of the composer‘s finales have
persisted longer than most complaints. For example in a relatively recent article
Michael Griffel writes, ‗Schubert was preparing to take lessons, presumably in
counterpoint but perhaps actually in the writing of finales from Simon Sechter‘.62
Badura-Skoda is of a similar opinion and even divides Schubert‘s finales into those
composed before and after the finale of the ‗Great‘, when he writes:
The clearest manifestation of this newly awakened energy during his last years
seems to be Schubert‘s solution to the problem of composing finales which can
be regarded as a match for or even a climax to the preceding movements. The C
major Symphony in particular shows his success in constructing a last movement
[…] crowning the whole work with a conclusion well worthy of what has gone
before […] The last movements of the well-known instrumental works of 1825
can hardly bear comparison with it […] Hence one feels inclined on stylistic
grounds to settle […] for 1826 as the year of the composition of the finale. The
instrumental works of 1828 […] have finales which exhibit the same sense of
spaciousness and range as we find in the symphony.63
In an earlier discussion of the finale of the ‗Great‘, Mosco Carner seems to deny that
even the finales of the Octet, the A minor, and the D minor quartets are as successful
as their symphonic ‗successor‘:
Yet even his mature instrumental compositions do not, in spite of their inner
unity, possess that cogent logic in the sequence of four movements that would
impart to the finale a feeling of inevitability. Perhaps the finale of the Ninth
Symphony comes nearest to that. But here, I think, it is solely the immense
rhythmic impetus that creates the impression of a final climax to the preceding
movements.64
Unconvinced, one may ask whether the finale of the D minor quartet, a fiery
tarantella, did not contribute to the ‗immense rhythmic impetus‘ Carner observes in
61
Many such prejudices are attributed to Donald Francis Tovey; see, for example, his Essays in
Musical Analysis 1: Symphonies 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1935/ fourteenth impression
1972), hereafter referred to as Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis. Recent revisionists include David
Beach, Charles Fisk, Leo Black, John Gingerich, Poundie Burstein, Suzannah Clark, Richard Cohn,
Hali Fieldman, Christopher Gibbs, Michael Graubart, etc.
62
Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 205.
63
64
Mosco Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘ Schubert: A Symposium, ed. by Gerald Abraham (London:
Lindsay Drummond, 1946), 26 hereafter referred to as Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘.

33
the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony‘s finale. Such speculation was, at this time, dismissed
by Maurice Brown who writes:
The finale [of the ‗Great‘] has been called a ‗poem of speed.‘ It is a volcanic
outpouring of music: neither the tarantella rides of the quartet finales65
[...] nor
the varied dance measures of the Octet [...] contributed more than a trifle to this
new and colossal movement.66
Perhaps a more recent discovery made by Paul Badura-Skoda might offer an
explanation for the success of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony‘s finale beyond the
references to rhythmic drive and speed cited above.67
Badura-Skoda points out that:
[...] in the first, third and fourth movements [of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony]
Schubert uses a new harmonic formula, of which no trace appears in his work
before the end of 1826[...] it is used regularly only in the finale, so much so that it
may be described as part of the movement‘s very structure.68
The harmonic formula in question is the resolution of a German augmented sixth with
its bass on the subdominant to the 6-3 of the tonic chord and not to the major or
minor 6-4 of the submediant.69
This turn of harmony is not present in the
‗Unfinished‘ Symphony, the octet or the quartets of 1824 yet the finale of the ‗Great‘
benefits from its presence as it ‗makes it possible for [Schubert], as never before, to
effect a return to the tonic from very remote harmonic territory.‘70
It seems, then, that
the features of the finale of the ‗Great‘ which contribute most to its success, namely
65
At the time Brown wrote this it was still maintained that the ‗Great‘ C major was composed in 1828.
Brown is referring to the finales of the D minor and G major quartets.
66
Brown: Schubert: A Critical Biography, 297. See also Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the
Man, 364, where Newbould describes the octet finale as limbering up for the tirelessness of ‗Great‘.
67
Detailed examinations of rhythm and tempo in the finale of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony can be
found in Roy Howat: ‗‗Architecture as drama in late Schubert‘ in Schubert Studies, ed. by Brian
Newbould (USA: Ashgate England, 1998), 166ff.
68
Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 192-194. Badura-Skoda is incorrect when he says no
trace of this progression is to be found in Schubert before 1826. Brian Newbould cites earlier
instances. However, the progression is still rare and does not appear in any of the chamber-works
relevant to our study. See Brian Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 397-398.
69
Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 192. To demonstrate the frequent appearance of this
harmonic formula in the finale, Badura-Skoda offers the following list: bars 190-197, 246-253, 330-
337, 778-785, 834-841, 918-925, and 1046-1053.
70

34
its rhythmic impetus and the discovery of a new harmonic idiom, do not owe their
incorporation into that work to the ‗preparatory‘ efforts of the chamber works of
1824.
In conclusion, much of the stylistic vocabulary used by Schubert in the
‗Great‘ C major Symphony was developed in works written before 1824 and some
features of that vocabulary were developed for the first time in the composition of the
‗Great‘ itself. Winter claimed that the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, stylistically, could
have been written any time after the ‗Unfinished‘ of 1822. However if the chamber
works mentioned in Schubert‘s letter to Kupelwieser in March 1824 are to be omitted
from the stylistic timeline we must understand that it is not likely Schubert would
have written the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony in the same way we have it today. In
particular jeopardy would be, from our discussion, the use of the whole tone scale as
it appears in the first movement; the treatment of the three-key exposition; and the
structures of the second half of the slow movement71
and Trio.
To borrow Harold Truscott‘s words: ‗The great C major symphony is a
summing-up of Schubert‘s instrumental thinking from 1811 onwards […] practically
all the instrumental music he had written was in some sort a sketch for it.‘72
However, this places the 1824 chamber works alongside the other compositions from
Schubert‘s oeuvre in as much as they are not expendable. The ‗Great‘ drew from
them and would not have been the same composition it turned out to be had it not
71
The fact that the second half of the slow movement is partially indebted to the Eroica Symphony
slightly emasculates this point, but does not dismiss it. Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 163-
166. Shamgar‘s article considers the relationship between the climactic passages of these movements
but suggests that the climax in the ‗Great‘ C major is initiated by a point in the first key-area which
corresponds with the unresolved German Sixth in bar twelve of the A minor Quartet, see pages 154ff.
72
Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 203.

35
been for the existence of those prior compositions. This alone does not raise the 1824
chamber works above the other pieces that contributed to the ‗Great‘ and if we are to
understand these chamber works as having especially paved the way to the ‗Great‘ we
must find evidence that they deserve the moniker of ‗preparatory‘ works when other
contributing compositions are not similarly branded. There must be more to this label
than the limited evidence available in the Kupelwieser letter to justify such a
categorisation.

36
Part II: The Autograph of the ‘Great’; Testing the Working Method
Schubert‘s letter to Kupelwieser outlines a working method for the symphony:
namely, to assist a future composition with smaller-scale exercises. This application
of the term ‗working method‘ is to be understood in a broader sense than, for
example, the more immediate sense of sketching ideas on a two-stave particell prior
to orchestration (as Schubert had done for the ‗Unfinished‘), or the use of different
coloured inks for different stages of writing (as he did in the ‗Great‘ C major).
However the compositional practices and editing techniques used in Schubert‘s
immediate working methods in the ‗Great‘ may be examined here to gauge the
usefulness of the broader working method of using separate smaller works to prepare
for one larger work.
If this broad working method truly did assist Schubert in the composition of
the ‗Great‘, we might expect that the process of composing the Ninth went relatively
more smoothly than the composition of other symphonies by Schubert that were not
preceded by such preparatory methods. Examination of the autograph of the ‗Great‘,
however, suggests a different story. As Griffel writes:
According to a recent count made by Denis Vaughan, who has conducted the
complete Schubert symphonies, there are some 3,800 mistakes corrected in the
autograph scores of these works. The score of the ‗Great‘ Symphony alone
contains several hundred corrections [my emphasis]‘73
Elsewhere Griffel adds:
[…] intense labour shows clearly on the manuscript; for this one contains more
crossed-out notes and replaced pages than that of any other Schubert symphony.
Whole sections of movements appear on noticeably different grains and colours
73
Michael Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal of Schubert's Methods of Composition‘, The Musical Quarterly,
2/63 (1977), 187. Hereafter referred to as Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal‘.

37
of paper, datable to 1826. One sees that Schubert revised his work for several
months74
Furthermore, the nature of the mistakes that are corrected in the finale suggests quite
strongly that Schubert did not compose all of that movement directly into score but
composed at least some of it into a now missing rough sketch. Griffel notes that the
double bass at bar 230 lags one bar behind the other instruments for a full eleven bars
before being corrected.75
This type of error would be highly unusual if the music was
being composed for the first time into the score, but it would be quite understandable
if Schubert was copying the part from a sketch. A similar error occurs later in the
movement where the cello line skips bar 388 and continues on, two bars ahead of the
rest of the music for a further two bars. Griffel claims, ‗most likely [Schubert] was
looking at a piano sketch of the piece, and his eyes slipped for an instant in the
copying of the part.‘76
This leads us to acknowledge that a count of the corrections in
the autograph represents only a small number of the difficulties Schubert had
overcome.
The Gamut of Corrections in the First Movement of the ‘Great’
Now let us briefly consider some of the corrections that have captured the attention of
scholars in the past. This will help us to appreciate the richly varied nature of
Schubert‘s revisions. For the sake of brevity, and to keep our overall discussion as
focused as possible, we shall confine this list to the first movement. Schubert‘s
practice in this score of using different shades of ink for different stages of the
74
Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 202.
75
Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal‘, 208.
76
Ibid., 208 and 210.

38
composition allows us to see with unusual clarity Schubert‘s compositional processes
at work.77
In this first movement there are approximately twenty-four corrections
between bars 9 and 22. They are small changes, but they are made to musical
material that becomes very important later in the movement. Such amendments
endorse the conventional belief that this first movement was being composed directly
into the score and not taken down from a different, sketched draft. In addition: (i) the
tempo indication was changed from ‗Allegro vivace‘ to ‗Allegro ma non troppo‘ and
(ii) The first allegro theme was modified as an afterthought and, with a few simple
strokes, was made infinitely more memorable (Example 1.14):
Before
After
(iii) Near the commencement of the second subject group, before bar 162, an
additional bar is inserted to maintain the established pattern of regular bar-groupings.
77
Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal‘, 200. Winter: ‗Paper Studies‘, 267 f.n. 46 warns us to exercise caution
when trying to understand the genesis of the symphony based on different coloured inks until more
research has been conducted. That is not to discredit all conclusions drawn from ink studies in the
meantime, merely that they may at times need to be supplemented with other evidence when
attempting to draw conclusions based on them.

39
(iv) In bar 21 a crotchet note A in the second viola is changed to two quavers moving
from B to A to highlight the suspension in the second cello line (Example 1.15):
Example 1.15. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, I, bar 21
Before After
(v) In the development section, bars 262 and 263 are inserted in the margin and
Griffel states that ‗the alterations in this section concern primarily the first violin part
and imply that Schubert at an early stage had trouble with the composition at this
point.‘78
(vi) The coda itself went through various permutations, shown here are some of the
deleted bars from the original coda (Example 1.16) which had a weaker bass-line than
the final version:
78

40
Example 1.16. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, I, bars deleted from coda
In the coda Schubert inserted a lengthy passage after the movement had been
completed and, as Reed notes, this revision enhances the climax and proves that
‗heavenly lengths‘ were clearly a conscious part of Schubert‘s vision.79
We see from such examples Schubert‘s attention to detail, his patience, and
the direct compositional engagement that allowed him to change central ideas even at
very late stages in composition. Furthermore, knowledge of such changes will inform
79
John Reed: ‗How the ―Great‖ C Major Was Written‘, Music & Letters, 1/56 (1975), 23. Hereafter
referred to as Reed: ‗How the ―Great‖ C Major Was Written‘. The phrase ‗heavenly lengths‘ does, of
course, date back to Schumann.

41
a comparison of features of the symphony with earlier compositions that are said to
anticipate this work.
Extent of Corrections in Parts of the ‘Great’ that had been ‘prepared’ by the
1824 Chamber Works
The corrections made to Schubert‘s autograph for the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony
ranged from minor adjustments of texture or grammatical matters to the supplanting
of entire sections of the music with new ideas.80
However, to test the usefulness of
his preparatory works as a ‗compositional testing ground‘ we must focus our attention
on the shared elements between these preparatory pieces and the ‗Great‘ and search
for evidence of increased ease of composition in those parts of the symphony that
benefited from preparatory work.
When we consider the contributions made by Schubert‘s 1824 chamber works
to the composition of his ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, certain examples discussed in
the previous chapter stand above the rest as being the most substantial and
convincing. The first is the observation that the structure of the slow movement of
the ‗Great‘ is derived from a combination of the structures of the slow movements of
the A minor String Quartet and the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor. 81
A cursory
examination of the autograph of the Andante movement of the ‗Great‘ paradoxically
suggests that this movement gave Schubert the most trouble. At times the corrections
are so numerous that Schubert‘s normally neat scoring begins to look like a
80
Compare these with the corrections made to the autograph of the ‗Unfinished‘ which are far more
innocuous. See T.C.L. Pritchard: ‗The Unfinished Symphony‘, Music Review, 3 (1942), 11-12.
81
Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 157.

42
Beethoven sketch.82
For example, consider the quiet opening bars of the Andante.
One would expect that this simple opening would be relatively free from revisions
but the autograph shows Schubert made many corrections. For example, in bars 1 to
10 the second violins originally doubled the first violins whereas they now fill out the
harmony. So too the violas originally played an E pedal note in bars 1 to 5 and bar 7
where they now simply fill out the harmony in a figuration shared with the violins.
Considering similar revisions Michael Griffel argues, ‗today it is difficult to
imagine the beginning of this movement as anything but the four-part harmonized
march it now is, but Schubert arrived at this ―natural‖ sound only after rejecting or
revising earlier ideas.‘83
Such examples, however, lie only on the surface, and
structural changes are not to be found in this movement.84
Schubert‘s certainty of the
overall form is detected by Griffel who recognises how in this movement each page
looks as though it was sketched first and then worked up before Schubert moved on
to the next page; an approach quite different from what we understand to be the
process he employed in the other movements.85
It is highly likely that Schubert
composed in this manner. It was his practice in the Seventh Symphony, the Tenth
Symphony, and even the G major quartet to sketch out the material in large sections
before filling any detail in. However, it should be noted that the sketched lines
82
83
Ibid., 203-204.
84
In the first movement an original coda between bars 590 and 646 was removed and entirely
rewritten. The finale originally contained a second subject which some scholars believe suggested a
fugato section left unpursued in the final version.
85

43
contain fewer changes than the other parts from which we may acknowledge the
surety of Schubert‘s concept for the structure of this movement.86
If the second movement of the ‗Great‘ contained significant changes to the
structure we could expect to see pages such as the following example from the finale
(Illustration 1.17). That is to say, even though the second movement gave Schubert
trouble in the unfolding of musical ideas, the form that had been determined in the
‗Unfinished‘ and the A minor String Quartet was readily employed and caused no
problems.
Illustration 1.17. Folio 88v
of the autograph score of the ‘Great’ Symphony
86

44
The second example discussed earlier of a substantial anticipation of the ‗Great‘ C
major Symphony is that the structure of the Trio section of the ‗Great‘ is derived
entirely from the Trio of the D minor String Quartet. In the C Major Symphony
manuscript the autograph of the Trio section, in direct contrast to the autograph of the
Andante movement, is exceptionally clean. It is free from all but the most trifling of
corrections and at first glance appears to be the movement that gave Schubert the
least trouble. In this movement, however, the immediate working method is
different; Schubert employed only one colour ink. What is more striking is that it is
the colour which, in the earlier movements, he had reserved for the second stage of
composition. Griffel argues that it was not uncommon for a page to get so messy
with corrections that Schubert would discard it, write the final version out afresh and
insert the new pages into the folio when ready.87
Consequently, it is possible that the
cleanest pages in a Schubert autograph are in fact the pages that had given him the
most trouble. It is argued by both Reed and Griffel that the Trio of the ‗Great‘ is a
fair copy of a now missing sketch. If this is true, then we cannot tell from this
evidence alone if compositional ‗problems‘ overcome had any bearing on the ease or
difficulty with which Schubert arrived at the structure of this work – a structure
which appears to be anticipated so convincingly by the D minor String Quartet.
There is, however, one clue. Reed notes that within the Trio there is a large
pocket of ‗new‘ paper inserted fourteen bars before the double bar-line. Reed argues
that ‗the decision to repeat the first section of the Trio was an afterthought, and that
originally the movement ran on from bar 281 to the beginning of the second
87

45
section.‘88
Although a repeat may not appear to be of great structural significance in
some works, the structural comparisons drawn between the Trio of the ‗Great‘ and
the Trio of the D minor String Quartet rely heavily on temporal proportions between
sections. Without a repeat of the first section the comparison between the Trios
would be far less tenable (c.f. Table 1.13). Consequently, it appears that in the Trio
of the ‗Great‘, despite there being an exact structural model ready in a preparatory
work, Schubert only utilised that model as an afterthought.
It is feasible that the missing draft of the Trio originally contained the repeat;
that Schubert removed it when making out the fair copy we have today but on further
reflection thought better of it and inserted the repeat again. Such a scenario would
neatly bolster the argument that Schubert readily employed structural models used in
preparatory works but there is no evidence to support it and the possibility is only
mentioned so that our study may be comprehensive.
The third example concerns the scherzo of both the ‗Great‘ and the octet (c.f.
Example 1.11a and 1.11b). Apart from the closeness of melodic contour, the most
striking similarity between both these examples is the choice of modulation and
repetition. The use of a repeat marks the melody‘s significance in the octet; indeed, it
renders it more significant by giving it a breadth that impacts the expanse of the
overall form. If the octet‘s melody‘s appearance was truly preparatory for the
‗Great‘, the repeat and the modulation would be the most structurally important
features of the theme contributing to the latter work. However Brown notes:
88
Reed: ‗How the ―Great‖ C Major Was Written‘, 24.

46
It is clear from the manuscript that he [Schubert] did not originally intend to play
the four-bar theme played by the flute. After it was written, however, he marked
the bars (89-92) for repeat (bis) and then continued by giving the violins and oboe
the theme in C major. This may possibly be a harking back to the treatment he
had so successfully used in the Scherzo of the Octet.89
Once again, Schubert only draws on the full bounty of previous compositional
experience as an after thought. Note how Brown infers the composer reached back to
a success from the past rather than conclude that the octet definitively served a
preparatory function. Indeed, this relationship seems largely more akin to self-
quotation than compositional preparation.
The second movement of the ‗Great‘, the Andante, is based on a hybrid of two
earlier works and as such the resulting form is, by definition, a new structure that sets
the original spark from which the rest of the new music can grow. The Trio of the
‗Great‘, however, is based wholesale on a form that was already used in a preparatory
work. Therefore the overall structure of the Andante, when compared to the inherited
structure of the Trio, is to be considered a new idea rather than a pre-existing
framework from a preparatory work. The Scherzo and Trio utilised earlier models
but did so only as after-thoughts, once Schubert had already ‗tested‘ similar ideas in
the act of composing the ‗Great‘. In these ways the manuscript itself was a testing
ground for the symphony‘s composition at least as much as the chamber works can
claim to have been. As Leo Black writes:
Schubert is not one of the composers who seem always to be trying to write the
same work, and nobody would or should make out that everything in the Great C
Major is compiled from earlier music by himself or anyone else. Its ‗self-
references‘ do, all the same, show the underlying continuity within a startling
process of development.90
89
90
Black: Music and Belief, 129-130.

47
Part III: A Change of Direction
It seems that Schubert did not always necessarily utilise the models of the preparatory
works in his first attempts at writing the ‗Great‘ Symphony. That is not to say,
however, that the 1824 chamber works did not inform his compositional path.
Perhaps looking forward and contributing material is not the nature of Schubert‘s
preparatory work and maybe his admission in his letter to Kupelwieser should be
taken more broadly. Perhaps it was the goal of the preparatory works to encounter
their own artistic trials and overcome them, not so Schubert could later recreate such
events on a larger scale, but so that they served as a testing ground for
experimentation with structural forms that may or may not be utilised in later
compositions. As Brown wrote as early as 1966:
To Schubert, the ‗symphony‘ was the supreme musical form […] the
hypernatural alertness with which he approached the composition has given us in
this symphony the best of Schubert […] but that attitude of mind also struck
deeply into his subconscious creative powers, and the over-stimulated brain
reached back and found successful practices from the past to use them […] in
order to contribute to a symphony that would be the crown of his work.91
We may add to Brown‘s words the recent opinions of Leo Black from an essay
concerned with the quotation of song material in instrumental music: ‗Subcutaneous
links between song and instrumental music bear examination; they throw light on the
unity of Schubert‘s mind, its ability to summon up, computer-like, a myriad musical
options and instantly choose the most suitable.‘92
That Schubert reached back into
his past when he wanted or needed to is in keeping with our findings and we may say
that the smaller works certainly served a preparatory role in that there was at least
91
92
Leo Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘, The Musical Times, 1852/138 (1997), 7. Hereafter referred to as
Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘.

48
something for the ‗over-stimulated‘ brain to reach back to. But if such is the case,
what is the difference between writing a series of self-sufficient ‗preparatory‘ works
which may or may not be referenced, and simply having a regular back-catalogue, the
experiences of which may or may not be drawn from?
The distinction must also be acknowledged between what constitutes a
genuine progression of a model and self-quotation. The latter technique is not alien
to Schubert whose quartets in A minor and D minor derive their nicknames from the
previously composed overture and Lied which they quote respectively. To return to
Leo Black, who writes of this association:
Clearly music in the symphonic mould obeys laws arising from a special sector of
its composer‘s being and the nature of the form, but the song fragments in these
works [the A minor and D minor quartets, etc.] show him [Schubert] doing more
than merely reminisce and quote himself. Certain ideas refuse to go away once
he has made a song out of them. He broods over what they have to offer, extracts
its essence and lays the foundation for something extensive.93
When we are told certain works pave the way to certain other works, we expect
deeper and more revealing connections than we find with self-quotation. Self-
quotation is a very concrete type of connection between two compositions but
Schubert‘s prolific melodic invention would have us believe it is not the type of
connection upon which a new work depends. The number of connections between
the chamber works and the ‗Great‘ that can be proven to be ‗prepared‘ – and not just
ideas that were repeated when alternatives were not forthcoming – are very few. This
does not mean Winter was correct to say the ‗Great‘ could have been written after the
‗Unfinished‘ without the intercession of the 1824 chamber works (although perhaps a
work of equal quality to the ‗Great‘ could have been composed) but it does make it
93
Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘, 10.

49
difficult to prove that the ‗Great‘ had a real dependence on the chamber works; after
all, if an idea appears for the first time in a chamber work it could just as easily have
appeared for the first time in a symphony.
Analysis of the quantity of changes Schubert made to the score of the ‗Great‘
reveals that the composition did not develop as smoothly as one might expect of a
work for which several masterpieces had been dedicated to it under the banner of
‗study pieces‘. When Schubert ultimately set to write a major-key symphony rather
than a minor-key work he drew as much, if not more, from his previous orchestral
essays as he did from the chamber works deemed preparatory for that task.94
Consequently it becomes difficult to credit similar instances in the chamber works
and the ‗Great‘ as definitively and deliberately prepared for use in that symphony as
opposed to being successes from the past reached back to by the composer (in such a
94
Consider the number of foreshadowings of the ‗Great‘ found in the earlier orchestral music by
previous scholars without any need for directions such as those found in the Kupelwieser letter. All but
two of the symphonies that preceded the ‗Great‘ were in major-keys. For general similarities between
the ‗Great‘ and earlier orchestral music see Arthur Hutchings: Schubert (London: J. M. Dent, 1973), 90
(hereafter referred to as Hutchings: Schubert); McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 145; Brian Newbould:
‗Schubert‘, in The Nineteenth-Century Symphony, Studies in Musical Genres and Repertories, ed. by
D. Kern Holoman, gen. ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997), 6, 8 hereafter referred
to as Newbould: ‗Schubert‘; Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘, 9; Reed: ‗How the ―Great‖ C Major was
Written‘, 19; James A. Westrup: Schubert: Chamber Music, (London: BBC Publication/Ariel Music,
1969/repr. 1975, 1977, 1980/ first published in Ariel Music 1986), 37 (hereafter referred to as
Westrup: Schubert: Chamber Music); Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 198; Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘,
40, 51, 54. Specific anticipations of the first movement of the ‗Great‘: Brown: Essays on Schubert, 34-
37; John Reed: Schubert, The Master Musicians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, rev. 1996,
repr. 1997), 133 (hereafter referred to as Reed: Schubert); Brian Newbould: ‗Schubert‘s ―Great‖ C
major Symphony: the autograph revisited‘, in Schubert Studies, ed. by Brian Newbould (England:
Ashgate, 1998), 136; Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 200; Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘, 38, 40, 47, 61.
Specific anticipations of the second movement of the ‗Great‘: Brown: Essays on Schubert, 37, 40;
Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘, 58, 62. Specific anticipations of the third movement of the ‗Great‘:
Brown: Essays on Schubert, 40, 43; Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 198; Newbould: Schubert:
The Music and the Man, 374; Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony, 235; Carner: ‗The Orchestral
Music‘, 36, 44, 59. Specific anticipations of the finale of the ‗Great‘: Brown: Essays on Schubert, 47,
49-51, 53-56; Daniel Coren: ‗Ambiguity in Schubert‘s Recapitulations‘ The Musical Quarterly, 4/60
(1974), 577 (hereafter referred to as Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘); Reed: Schubert, 118; Truscott: ‗Franz
Schubert‘, 197; Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘, 45, 60.

Adam Cullen Final Thesis MLITT

Adam Cullen Final Thesis MLITT

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