Programme note
Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828)
Symphony No 9 in C major, D944 ‘The Great’ (1825-6)
Andante – Allegro ma non troppo
Andante con moto
Scherzo: Allegro vivace
Allegro vivace
There was a time when Schubert’s Great C major symphony, as we have come to call it, was deemed unplayable. Performers were daunted not merely by what Schumann described as its "heavenly lengths," but also by the energy needed to keep the music airborne. Mendelssohn, who conducted its premiere in Leipzig a decade after Schubert’s death, prudently chose to abbreviate it. When he later took it to London, the players, faced with the equestrian string figuration in the finale, shamefully laughed him off the platform, thereby delaying its first British performance for another twelve years. Other orchestras proved equally scornful. Hornists – who in this work are the immediate recipients of one of Schubert’s greatest themes – dismissed it as tuneless.
Yet the Great C major is nothing if not melodious, as well as masterly in its structural sweep. The entire work displays a discernibly progressive approach to symphonic form. The opening horn theme is spacious enough to occupy the whole slow introduction, just as the scherzo’s central trio section consists of a vast single melody, gloriously unfurled.
Out of the first movement's slow introduction springs an emphatically rhythmic, jerky theme, pummelling rather than songlike, followed by a swerve from major to minor for a quieter, more lyrical second subject on the woodwind. The momentum is never disrupted. The use of pianissimo trombones is a famous example of Schubert’s flair for instrumental colouring. From time to time the music explodes with vitality, nowhere more so than in the coda, in quicker tempo, which brings back the opening horn theme in exhilaratingly high relief.
The andante, with its wistful oboe theme, anticipates the trudging pulse of Schubert’s Winterreise cycle. Abrupt trombone chords add an air of impatience and the whole fabric of the movement is later torn apart by the unexpected violence of its climax – an example of what has been called Schubert’s "volcanic temper," a side of the composer only recently identified. After a stunned silence and some hesitant pizzicati, the flow of the music uneasily resumes.
The succeeding scherzo is a Viennese dance on a grand scale, relentless in its spinning energy and stamping rhythms, shot through with wisps of melody that keep getting thrust aside by the ceaseless motion. The finale sustains the momentum, galloping like a ride to the abyss. Not even the serene woodwind theme that forms the second subject provides respite, because the strings keep the rhythm constantly on the boil. A stupendous coda, filled with huge anvil strokes, brings the symphony to a fitting close.
© Conrad Wilson
