CCXV. SCHUBERT, Franz: Symphony #4 in C Minor

CCXV. SCHUBERT, Franz (1797-1828)

Symphony #4 in C Minor (1816)
1. Adagio molto -- Allegro vivace
2. Andante
3. Menuetto Allegro vivace
4. Allegro
Frankfurt Radio Symphony
Andrés Orozco-Estrada, cond.
(35:11)

Schubert was the twelfth of fourteen children.

Sorry, but I can't help seeing this scene play before my eyes.

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In 1816 -- aged 19 -- he composed this symphony. The subtitle -- Tragic -- is his own. He left his home and his father's school to live with a friend, Franz von Schober. He was dejected and depressed after having been unsuccessful in acquiring the job of kappelmeister at Laibach (Ljubijana, Slovenia today), and although he began teaching at Schober's, he soon retreated into hermitry and composed from dawn to dusk.

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It is time -- with my first post of anything Schubert -- for your humble blogger to admit that most of the music written between 1827 and Mahler does not thunder in my soul. Schubert's lieder -- the subject of future posts -- does interest me, but aside from the Unfinished and Great C Major, his symphonies leave me cold.

I have spent some time studying this one, and come to these conclusions:

First Movement

They say the beginning is ripped from the start of Haydn's Creation. To me, it only sounds vaguely similar.

I'll admit that the movement to the second fermata in G-Flat Major was a nice surprise!

And that the ensuing Allegro is similarly snatched from Beethoven's String Quartet #4, Op. 18, No. 4.

Well, sure -- if you're gonna steal, steal from the best!

The Development:

  

sounds promising ... but methinx Beethoven would have already surprised me by the second bar.

Second Movement

Lovely, but hardly earth-shattering. The call-and-response in the winds is nice.

Third Movement

Ah, now here is some nice tone-painting:

It feels like one is trying to walk on ice -- losing one's balance; regaining it, and finally falling on one's arse, but laughing about it.

Fourth Movement

Right before this the firsts and seconds are in octaves, but then Schubert writes some nicely delicate underpinning in the seconds and violas (in sixths and thirds) with the first sighing above:

The four-note motif brings things to a close: