Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

SCHUBERT'S 8TH SYMPHO

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chubert's routine was something he kept almost all his life, particularly with regard to his composing times. Religious, he was, about when he composed as, indeed, he was about how he composed. In this respect, too, he had one big rule - he would never start a new composition before he had finished the last one. It was an unbreakable rule of his. Even when he was producing gallons and gallons of music -and Schubert really did knock it out - he would still religiously finish one piece before starting the next. Take the year 1815. In that year alone, he composed a massive 140 songs, sometimes writing up to eight a day! But even then, with so many songs to be written, he would still… finish one before starting another.

Do you get my point? I'm not labouring it, am I? You see, it's because what /want to know is this. How did he manage to leave his Symphony No 8 unfinished? Eh? Answer me that! It was written in 1822, when he still had six years left to live. OK, not an age, or anything, but certainly, at Schubert's rate, plenty of time to finish a symphony. So what about his rule? Why was it left UNFINISHED? I mean! If Schubert was the Magnus Magnusson of classical music, how come he left us only two movements oftSymphony No 8, instead of four? I think we need to look at this more, but first, let's get our bearings.

1822: Brazil gets its independence, and, consequently, football gets its greatest exponents. Queen Caroline is now sitting on the great throne in the sky, probably as far away as possible from Napoleon, who has also recently gone up there somewhere. Both Spain and Piedmont have had revolutions - well, you have to, don't you? - and, next year, central America, too, has a bit of a general spring clean. Mexico goes it alone, while Guatemala, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica all join hands to form the Confederation of Central America. In the Confederation of Central Luwiedom - or the Arts, as it's more commonly known - Percy Shelley has made his final overtures to Mary. Or maybe, more accurately, H20vertures. Canova, he of the Three Graces, has gone too, as has, on a more scientific note, Sir William Herschel. From deaths to births - and the Sunday Times is a new arrival in 1822. Stretching it a little, there's a marriage, too, as Stephenson's engineering feat joins Stockton to Darlington.

That's the broad world, then, but what is going on in the mind of Franz Schubert, the absolute stickler - some might say, pain - about not picking up a blank page for one work until he's finished the last. Well, as you can imagine, there have been more than a few theories as to why it stayed at just two movements, and, subsequently, the most famous 'unfinished' in history. Some say he lost inspiration. Some say he did, indeed, finish it but that a friend lost it. And some say no: on this occasion, he simply broke his own rule and moved on to something else. Mmmm, I'm not sure. I don't think I fully buy any of those, to be honest. I just think it's much simpler than all that. I think there is no real mystery. I think Schubert is quite simply the first REAL romantic. True-blue, dyed-in-the-wool, floppy-fringed, bespectacled ROMANTIQUE. And I think he just got to two movements and thought: 'Wow, that's fantastic. You know what? Sod it. It doesn't get any better than that. Who says I have to write four movements? I'm a romantic and proud. There are no rules, now! All bets are off. IF I WANT A TWO-MOVEMENT SYMPHONY… I'LL HAVE ONE!'

Just one year later, in 1823, Beethoven unveiled his latest offering - a massive, five-movement Mass. Rather like Delius a hundred-odd years later, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is rather less of a hymn to God and more of a personal celebration of all things natural and creative. Where a traditional Mass celebrated God, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis celebrates man. It had proved a real labour of love for him over the five years or so it took to write - so much so that the event for which it was written was long gone. On this occasion, at least, Beethoven was not going to find himself, as Schubert had, with an unfinished work on his hands.