Schubert - Symphony 8 'Unfinished' [Davis-Boston Symphony Orchestra]
Here's a disc that is fairly new in my collection, this is only its second outing, it's definitely Schubert, but at the same time sounds so different to his next Symphony, darker and sombre, and generally a feel of unease, but i love the work, the Ninth / The Great has been my favourite Symphony of Schubert, but now the Unfinished is now vying for that honour, they're more equals than ever before, i really enjoyed playing this today.
Colin Davis is English, he died a couple of years ago at age 85, this disc came out in 1984, the front cover shows Davis conducting, the picture is not very sharp, but it has a wonderful sense of lighting from above, and the black background make things stand out, the lettering is in white and light blue and light green, it's all well proportioned.
I love both of these movements, but it's the second that just edges it, it's an Andante in the key of E Major, and it certainly throws off the dark clouds of the first movement, and yet there's still this underlying sense of sadness there, the strings quietly sing out their sad refrain, it really is beautiful and innocent, however Schubert heightens the drama by playing a sort of funeral tread of the beat louder [1:13+], with the darker strings emphatically making their presence known, a trio section comes up next [2:29+], and solo woodwind instruments rule here, first the clarinet [2:29-3:07], and then what sounds like the cor anglais [3:10+], mixed in with other instruments, this section is a gorgeous idea by Schubert, but the loud funeral tread comes back in with a menace [3:36+], louder than ever, think Bydlo here from Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition, there's a lumbering gait to the whole thing, but it's constantly interspersed with quiet moments of beauty, the opening returns [5:18+], and it's so good that everything's repeated, plus the trio section comes back with the oboe it sounds [7:47-8:26], and the clarinet afterwards, the menacing loud music returns in force [8:54+], but it's the nostalgic stuff that finally wins the day, there's a sort of one minute coda at the end, and even though that's not how Schubert planned to end the work, for me it is a fitting end, the opening bars of the planned third movement you can hear on YouTube, but they're so out of the spirit of the work, maybe that's why Schubert gave up on it!, in its truncated form it sounds 'complete'.
Here's Muti conducting the second movement on YouTube.
Colin Davis is English, he died a couple of years ago at age 85, this disc came out in 1984, the front cover shows Davis conducting, the picture is not very sharp, but it has a wonderful sense of lighting from above, and the black background make things stand out, the lettering is in white and light blue and light green, it's all well proportioned.
I love both of these movements, but it's the second that just edges it, it's an Andante in the key of E Major, and it certainly throws off the dark clouds of the first movement, and yet there's still this underlying sense of sadness there, the strings quietly sing out their sad refrain, it really is beautiful and innocent, however Schubert heightens the drama by playing a sort of funeral tread of the beat louder [1:13+], with the darker strings emphatically making their presence known, a trio section comes up next [2:29+], and solo woodwind instruments rule here, first the clarinet [2:29-3:07], and then what sounds like the cor anglais [3:10+], mixed in with other instruments, this section is a gorgeous idea by Schubert, but the loud funeral tread comes back in with a menace [3:36+], louder than ever, think Bydlo here from Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition, there's a lumbering gait to the whole thing, but it's constantly interspersed with quiet moments of beauty, the opening returns [5:18+], and it's so good that everything's repeated, plus the trio section comes back with the oboe it sounds [7:47-8:26], and the clarinet afterwards, the menacing loud music returns in force [8:54+], but it's the nostalgic stuff that finally wins the day, there's a sort of one minute coda at the end, and even though that's not how Schubert planned to end the work, for me it is a fitting end, the opening bars of the planned third movement you can hear on YouTube, but they're so out of the spirit of the work, maybe that's why Schubert gave up on it!, in its truncated form it sounds 'complete'.
Here's Muti conducting the second movement on YouTube.
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