Nickname of
Franz Schubert's 8th
symphony.
The last of Schubert's
symphonies to be discovered, performed, and published, this famous work came down to us in two
movements only (an opening
sonata-form movement and and a slow movement). Its
dreamy and
passionate melodies are coupled to a sense of hanging
sadness. There has always been the question why this symphony was left unfinished (or is it?). Schubert wrote it six years before his death, but it came at a time when he was busy with other
projects. Perhaps he simply set it aside (sending the completed
portions to friends he had promised it to) and moved on to these jobs, particularly the
incidental music for
Rosamunde, which he had every hope would earn money (it failed). The two movements are particularly satisfying, with rich sounds and strong, fully
Romantic emotional content. They are large in scale, lasting almost a half hour by themselves, so that a completed symphony would have approached fifty minutes or more in length. Various attempts to finish it have been made. The most successful have finished the
Scherzo movement which Schubert began
explicitly for this symphony and add the
Entr'acte in B
minor from
Rosamunde as the
finale. (It's just
possible that this movement, which in its scope is more suited to a symphony than to a stage play, is the missing original finale.) In the standard form, in any event, it is accepted as one of the absolute
masterpieces of the
symphonic genre.