Symphony No. 4 (Schubert)
The Symphony No. 4 in C minor, D 417, called Tragic Symphony, was composed in 1816 by Franz Schubert.
- 4.1 documents
- 4.2 Further Reading
Formation
The symphony was born a year after the Third Symphony, in the course of April in the year 1816, when Schubert was only 19 years old. According to Schubert's note at the end of the score, the Symphony on April 27, 1816 was completed. At the time of origin of the symphony Schubert worked as " Schulgehülfe his father's school at Vienna on Himmelpfortgrund No reason. 10 " and applied - but despite the intercession of his former teacher Antonio Salieri unsuccessfully - to a music teaching job in Ljubljana. But at the same time Schubert was also his first paid commission, the now -lost cantata Prometheus, scored a success for the nameday of the professor of political science Heinrich Joseph Watteroth.
Schubert began composing for his desire to write for the first time a symphony in a minor key. Outside the occasion for the composition of the symphony was the " Hartwig'sche Orchestra ", created for the probably the Symphony No. 4, Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 6. A performance by the orchestra - in the " Schottenhof " or " Gundelhof " - is possible, but not certain.
About the Music
By the composer titled subsequently even so, the title "Tragic " refers to the troubled moments that are found in the plant. He was repeatedly subject to much debate and criticism: Antonín Dvořák rewrote the adjective with " deep pathos ," and Robert Schumann complained: " ... a tragic one would make very different claims ." Harry Goldschmidt noted that Schubert had made a mental problem with the work, which he had not yet grown into his youth: "He was a tragic ' Write Symphony, and, behold, it was only a pathetic ' it. "
Schubert's decision to designate the symphony as " tragic ", aroused in the Schubert Research the impression that Schubert had " a new way of addressing searched with Beethoven" in order to " meet the ethical requirements ' of Beethoven's art." Accordingly, Schubert chose the key of C minor, " not by chance but under the influence of V. Beethoven " and other Beethoven works such as the String Quartet, Op 18.4 and the Coriolan Overture.
But just Schubert said, on June 16, 1816, shortly after completion of the Symphony No. 4, opposite Antonio Salieri skeptical about Beethoven by means what is very nearly owed Beethoven " alone, from this Bizzarrerie which the tragic with the comic, the pleasant with the adverse, the heroic with Heulerey, combines the sacred with the Harlequin, confused, not different [, ] the people of Frenzy offset [, ] instead of in love dissolves [, ] reitzt laugh instead rises to God ". According to Wolfram Steinbeck, it is rather that both - Beethoven and Schubert - have a common starting point: the tradition; both would therefore bypass different, of their own individual way the tradition ..
The work is in addition to the " Unfinished" Symphony, the only Schubert's in a minor key. The Duration of the four movements is of about 30 minutes.
Occupation
Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, string orchestra
1st movement: Adagio molto - Allegro vivace
The first set is different from the usual key scheme. Thus, the page set is not as it would be common in C minor, the home key of the symphony, on the III. Stage in E-flat major, but at the VI. Level in A-flat major. The set as a whole is - as the final movement - characterized by a syncopated rhythm.
After a 29 -measure introduction - the longest in a Schubert Symphony - held their increased repetition after the presentation of the main and side issues; this process is repeated in the brief development and the recapitulation. The epilogue is with 70 cycles compared to the main and side set unusually long. After the recapitulation the home key is reached only in the course of the epilogue and in the page set the major mode more clearly comes to light, ending the sentence, contrasting symmetry during the nickname of the symphony, in a brilliant conclusion.
2nd movement: Andante
In the Andante Schubert differs from the conventional key scheme by the rate of duty in the manner customary for minor works relative major, which would be E flat major here is, but in the major Gegenklang flat major. This approach finds its models with Ludwig van Beethoven, in his Symphony No. 5 and the " Pathétique ". Schubert but may have acted rather from his fondness for the subdominant area so. The total of 270 measures long set consists of a five-part form with the repetition scheme ABAB -A'- Coda.
The 52 bars of the Andante be initiated by a string section in pianissimo, followed by the solo oboe. After this turn sound the flutes and clarinets, and bassoons were added after Oboe, ends the A- part. The Andante cantabile theme is contrasted trated by energetic B- parts, which, however, sigh chains of the first violin and the woodwinds are opposed.
From the records of the Symphony No. 4, Andante learned, because of its significant length, the sharpest criticism. So wrote Schubert biographer Walter Vetter, the symphony lacks " the artistic unity, because the slow [ sic] not set at the height of the other sets " stand. During cousin described the sentence as " typical interior decoration " of the bourgeoisie, spoke musicologist Alfred Einstein of the " breadth and weakness " of the sentence. In the preface of the Eulenburg score # 507 Grabner called the set of a " significantly more valuable parts of the work ."
Nevertheless, the sentence appeared next to an arrangement for piano four hands already in 1871 at Peters / Leipzig in score.
3rd movement: Menuetto. Allegretto vivace
The Minuet corresponds with its distinctive rhythm in which the 3/4-time and the meter of the Choriambus contradict each other, and its tempo indication in the character of what Beethoven had called 2 " Scherzo " since his Symphony No.. While the simple theme of the minuet from a chromatically played around and down chromatically ascending scale is the minuet and thereby obtains a " tragic " character, there is a trio from a dance tune in the usual three-quarter time and pizzicatoartiger violin accompaniment.
4th movement: Allegro
The finish is of an urgent matching to the home key C minor character, which leads into a festive end of the block at the end. The set changes in its course between five tonal levels.
The movement begins with a four-bar opening credits, which acts as a prelude to a song and was supplemented by Schubert later a bassoon figure. The same four-bar figure is found, also added subsequently, between the end of exposure, and their repetition as well as in the introduction before the recapitulation. It is not clear to which of these places this four-stroke design was entered first and which of the three sites were added in sequence.
The movement ends in C major with trumpets and horns four times occupied without coda. While Walther cousin the " tragic [s ] in C minor " only " facade", was Alfred Einstein called the C major turn as " no real solution " and "conventional".
Effect
The first confirmed performance took place on November 19, 1849 under the direction of August Ferdinand Riccius in a conference organized by the Musical Society " Euterpe " in Leipzig concert held for more than two decades after Schubert's death. After this concert, wrote the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik:
" The symphony is comparable neither in nor plant design with the great C major Symphony [ they had sounded the first time in Leipzig in 1839 and had worked mightily ]; it is created and less of the momentum of thought is not so huge. But it offers so many things of beauty in their four sets; namely we want the last sentence appear in his blazing passion as the most important, where the composer also more emancipated from the influence of Haydn and Mozart. Empire of interesting harmonic combinations is also the Andante - in short, we are looking forward infinitely, to have met a work that is important in the development of Schubert's "
On 2 December 1860, arrived in Vienna ball room to a concert conducted by Johann von Herbeck concert, which consisted of the first two sentences of the Symphony No. 4, the third movement of the Symphony No. 6 and the finale of Symphony No. 3. Based on the first two sentences of the fourth symphony, which rang out at this show, judged music critic Eduard Hanslick, the first sentence is "not just on their own or in a dazzling new invention ", but as ...
" [ ... ] But a mature musical feeling, doing a präciseres aggregating the form, than the later instrumental stuff of the Master. The Andate brings in Mozart's mode of expression peculiar to Schubert's thoughts; pity that the smooth and uniform perception of the piece ( also by Rosalie chains and the like) drawn wide over charge " "
Was published the symphony in 1884 as part of the edited by Johannes Brahms complete edition of all the Old Schubert symphonies by the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel. Brahms certified Schubert's so-called " youth symphonies " no artistic value and think she was " should not be published, but retains only with piety and maybe made accessible by multiple copies ."
Antonín Dvořák was in his time one of the few admirers of Schubert's early symphonies, in which he - in spite of the influence of Haydn and Mozart - the " character of the melodies ," the " harmonic progression" and the " many exquisite details of orchestration " Schubert's individuality recognized.
Consisting of 94 high-format, zwölfzeiligen sheet music score is now in the possession of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna.