Listening Project

Te actual question that comes after your "listening project" on this 10th Symphony should be: Is this "reconstruction" that close, so that the "Symphony" may be included among the actual Schubert's Symphonies and, if yes, at which level: as a predecessor of his "little C major" or as a successor of his 3rd, for example?

Parla

OK 50m, I've now listened to the Bartholomée version too.

Here I have to disagree with you 50m. In fact I found the whole Liege performance rather disagreeable!  For a start, I think both the first and the second movements fall apart completely at those slower tempi you documented.  In the slow movement, marked Andante, Bartholomée's tempo is crotchet = 55, a real Adagio, compared with Marriner's 78, a fastish Andante. I really found it hard to concentrate!  And the extra power of the first movement, to my ears comes mainly from some rather coarse, ill-tuned brass playing (50m: see my PS below).

I'm rather glad I listened to Marriner first. Too lightweight perhaps, but at least a competent performance. This is often a problem with less-played works, isn't it, unless some great conductor decides to have a go, we may be judging the performance as much as the music.

As to the completely different solution to last one or two movements, well I wasn't convinced by either solutiuon.  I need to look more into what survives in the MS.  Is there a score available that clearly shows what Schubert left?

On the basis of Marriner, which I've now heard a second time, I stick with my first report!

Chris

PS: 50m, Concerning the way out-of-tune playing can sometimes give an illusion of greater power, I thought you might know the answer to this: I've been told that the reed stops of organs (especially some French ones) are sometimes deliberately tuned sharp in order to create an impression of more power.  Is there any truth in that?

Thanks for that Craig.  Tough read though! It's the original MS! All on two staves. OK, time to try to follow it with the recording!!

Chris

I expected a reasonable answer from you, Chris, and I got it. If it is a nice "bonus" to Schubert's output (even as a reconstructed work), it is fine with me and it looks as the logical response.

Thanks for the kindness to reply.

Parla

Here is what Newbould himself says about reconstructing the 10th:

A wise decision. Worth seeing but a buggar to make sense of!

Let's agree to disagree then ;)

To me, the Marriner version tends to underplay all the drama in the piece, specially in the first and second movements. In the andante, those forte-fanfares work like annoying interruptions, while in Bartholomée's version they're interwoven in the movement and they don't disrupt the motion.

I think Bartholomee succeded in making the piece sound like real 1828 Schubert, the full-blooded romantic Schubert whose style was as revolutionary as Beethoven's. In his performance you hear clear connections with Schumann, Bruckner, even Mahler, while Marriner seems to be content with emphasizing the ties Schubert still had with Mozart and Haydn.

I agree that the Belgian performance has its rough edges and that the French-styled orchestra isn't exactly the ideal medium for a German romantic work, but to me that's part of the charm. The Liege orchestra is one of those provincial ensembles which have a distinctive own style, which they haven't traded yet for the slick international "ideal sound", promoted by the travelling superstar conductors, that make all orchestras sound the same. In fact, it sounds more French than most real French orchestras nowadays, complete with that typical rough and cutting brass.

By the way, I also doubt an English baroque orchestra is the ideal medium for such a late Schubert work... What we really need is Chailly performing it in Leipzig, or Thielemann in Dresden!

I studied the original score a bit too - and I gotta say that my repect for Newbould and his reconstruction grew (thanks Bazza btw. for Newbould's own explanation of his work, very enlightening even if I still don't agree with his statement that Schubert planned the symphony in three parts. There's no way we can know for sure what Schubert could and would have done with all this raw material.)

I expected a rather complete and linear score - not unlike Mahler's 10th - but in fact it's much more of a puzzle, with lots of inserts, changements and large streches just consisting of a single melodic line. The first 2 movements appear to be fairly complete in that the structure is largely fixed and all the melodic material is present. The finale/scherzo hybrid however is a huge mess in the sketches, with several attempts crossed out, a loose structure and the presence of several sketched themes and fragments that can't be included in the final movement with 100% certainty.

What Newbould says about the highly contrapunctal scherzo/finale being closely related to Schubert's lessons in counterpoint with Sechter in the last weeks of his life is very improtant. One could go even further and claim that maybe the loose body of sketches that make Newbould's scherzo/finale wasn't intended for the symphony (or maybe at first but then abandoned, like the crossed out first attempt appears to indicate?) but purely for the lessons with Sechter? In that case, the 10th would make more sense as a 2-movement torso, mirroring the Unfinished in structure.

Still, Bartholomeés 4-movement version still sounds convincing to me, more convincing than the completed Unfinished, with its weak added movements. I don't agree that the 10th's finale is of lesser quality than the first two movements - and that's another big compliment for Newbould's work on the sketches.

I've never heard of that, frankly - and I fail to see who that would work too - tuning the reeds too sharp would only result in them sounding out of tune, not more powerful, i.m.o.

Fact IS of course that the reeds of big french cathedral organs ARE mostly out of tune, but that has more to do with lack of finances for maintenance than with a deliberate attempt to get more power out of the instruments...