FINISHING

THERE MUST BE a million unfinished novels in the world, a million unfinished poems, a million unfinished songs, and a million unfinished symphonies, lost in attics, gathering dust. The most famous of thie unfinished genre is surely Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Symphony #8. In an era when all symphonies had four movements, this one has but two. Schubert moved on. He completed Symphony number nine, and oter works, but never came back to the Unfinished Symphony and wrote two more movements. Its one of my favorite compositions. Both movements are surpassingly beeautiful, both built a simple but strong melody which gets into your blood and stays there. Sometimes I wonder why Schubert, when he realized that he was going to add nothing more to what he already had, didn'tsiply declare the work complete, call it "Symphony No. 8, Abbreviated", or something, or just present it to the world, as is, both movements, and let other people give it subtitles, as happens often in classical music. We know that Schubert fully intended to complete a standardfour movemetn symphony, which is perhpas why he never pulled the stunt I would have, of declaring the composition "complete" as is. He sketched out a rough draft of a third movement, but never finished it, nor composed a fourth movement. Many musicologists believe that for the fourth movement, Schubert intended to use a version of the overture for one of his operas, because the orchestration is the same for both works, and they are both in the same key. Along came a modern composer who actually finished the third movement, using what Cshubert had already sketched out, keeping it true to Schubert as best he could. I do not know how he came to have permission to embark on this project, nor if he even needed it. Then, he wrote a fourth movement, based heavily on the operatic overture that Schubert would probably have used, in an imitation of Schubert's style. We don't know why Schubert didn't finish this syphony. Schubert left many many works unfinished; its seems to have been simply a part of his personality, I heard the completed version of the Unfinihed Symphony for the first time recently, and I whole heartedly approve. To me, it sounds exactly the way I think Schubert would have made it sound, both new movements fitting in perfectly. Franz Schubert only lived to thirty one years old, and yet, he wrote an incredible amount of great music. Maybe, had he lived long, in his later years he would have gone back and finished the compositions he had left unfinished decades earlier. Generally speaking, when people abandon an unfinished project, they seldom return to it later to complete it. Franz Schubert was, as mentioned earlier, a notorious non finisher. H eleft a substantial number of compositions, including many symphonies, unfinished. I have no idea whether other people, since Schubert's deah in 1823 at only 31, have since finished or tried to finish any of them.tI have no idea what that would entail, legally, with regard to Schubert's estate. Today's talented crop of modern classical composers oul probably do an amazing job of completing all of Schubert's unfinished works. But woule that actually be desierable? Or it it be better to accept what we have gratefully, and to leave his, and other's. incomplete works in their eternal, incomplete state? The recently complete Unfinished Symphony is a wonoderful work of music. But, on balance I think that I prefer the original, eternal "Unfinished Symphony" #8 by Schubert in two beautiful movements, as is. It sounds beautiful no matter whether you add anything to it or not.