Symphony No.3 in D major, D.200

Schubert wrote the first 47 bars of his Third Symphony in May 1815. The whole rest of the work was written in no more than nine days in July of the same year. So what was the delay? What was it that, for more than a month in Schubert’s prodigiously fruitful nineteenth year, held back the flood of inspiration which was to be released with such astonishing momentum in July? It could be that he simply set the symphony aside in order to concentrate on something else, such as the dozens of songs he wrote in those few weeks. But if the explanation is in the work itself it is to be found in the first 47 bars.

The point at which Schubert broke off in May 1815 is just before the entry of the second subject of the first movement. He had written the dramatic Adagio maestoso introduction with its strings of repeated notes and its flourishing upward scales. He had also written the happy first subject for clarinet and had got well into the process of integration by inducing a full-scale climax based on the scales and repeated notes from the introduction. The problem must have been what to do next, how to introduce a contrasting second subject without compromising the so carefully effected thematic unity. The answer is a brief silence and then an A major oboe tune wittily derived from a cheerful little motif prominently featured between the scales and repeated notes in the preceding climax. After that, with such attractive material at his disposal, Schubert probably had to spend no longer in developing it than it took to write the notes down.

The two middle movements, charming as they are, cannot have involved Schubert in much creative effort. TheAllegretto is just a moment musical for orchestra, with modestly gracious outer sections in G major and an attractively debonair middle section in C major, while the Menuetto aspires to do little more than offset its heavily rustic dance rhythms with a fluently melodious duet for oboe and bassoon in the central Trio. The Presto vivace, on the other hand, is such a masterful exercise in sustained tension and such a compelling example of rhythmic obsession that it clearly foreshadows the finale of the “Great” C major Symphony Schubert was to write ten or eleven years later.

Gerald Larner©

Schubert wrote the first 47 bars of his Third Symphony in May 1815. The rest of the work - the remaining 175 bars of the first movement and the whole of the second, third and fourth movements - was written in no more than nine days in July of the same year. So what was the delay? What was it that, for more than a month in Schubert’s prodigiously fruitful nineteenth year, held back the flood of inspiration which was to be released with such astonishing momentum in July? It could be that he simply set the symphony aside in order to concentrate on something else, such as the dozens of songs he wrote in those few weeks. But if the explanation is in the work itself it is to be found in the first 47 bars.

The point at which Schubert broke off in May 1815 is just before the entry of the second subject of the first movement. He had written the dramatic Adagio maestoso introduction with its strings of repeated notes, its flourishing upward scales and the two-note phrase which is passed backwards and forwards round the woodwind just before the change of tempo to Allegro con brio. He had also written the happy first subject for clarinet and had got well into the process of integration by echoing the two-note phrase on oboes and horns and inducing a full-scale climax based on the scales and repeated notes from the introduction.

The problem must have been what to do next, how to introduce a contrasting second subject without compromising the so carefully effected thematic unity. The answer is a brief silence and then an A major oboe tune wittily derived from a cheerful little motif prominently featured between the scales and repeated notes in the preceding climax. On its recapitulation, that second subject is reintroduced not by oboe but by clarinet and not in D major but in G major, which gives Schubert the opportunity to recall the climax of scales and repeated notes so as to restore the movement to its proper tonality before the end.

The two middle movements, charming though they are, surely cost the composer rather less creative effort. TheAllegretto is just a moment musical for orchestra, with modestly gracious outer sections in G major and an attractively debonair middle section in C major, while the Menuetto aspires to do little more than offset its heavily rustic dance rhythms with a fluently melodious duet for oboe and bassoon in the central Trio. The Presto vivace, on the other hand, is such a masterful exercise in sustained tension and such a compelling example of rhythmic obsession that it clearly foreshadows the finale of the “Great” C major Symphony Schubert was to write ten or eleven years later.

Schubert wrote all the first 47 bars of his Third Symphony in the space of nine days - which, of course, is remarkable for a composer of eighteen or of any age. It is more interesting that, between the composition of the first 47 bars and the completion of the remaining 773, there was a break in this remarkable creative spontaneity of a month or more.

The first 47 bars include the Adagio maestoso introduction and, growing naturally from it, the whole of the first subject of the Allegro con brio. The rising scales and repeated notes of the introduction reappear at the first big climax in the Allegro con brio, and the two-note phrase passed around the woodwind at the end of the introduction is incorporated in the first subject, as the oboes’ and horns’ reply to the provocative little clarinet tune. Schubert’s problem was how to go on from such a well integrated beginning, how to introduce a second subject without apparently starting again. The eventual answer, after a month or so, was short pause and then an A major oboe tune wittily derived from a short motif prominently featured between the scales and repeated notes at the end of the preceding climax. From here there are no problems, only a particularly remarkable example of eighteen-year-old genius when, at the end of the recapitulation, Schubert merges second subject with first subject so as to be able to end the movement on the familiar climax of scales and repeated notes.

The G major Allegretto, which is scarcely more than a moment musical for orchestra, evidently cost Schubert less creative effort. At first, because of the way the main theme is presented, in two repeated halves, it seems that the movement is about to take the shape of a set of variations. However, the delightful clarinet tune which follows is clearly not a variant and, in fact, it proves to be the basis of the C major middle section of a simple ternary construction. Given a melodic gift like that, Schubert probably did not take more than a few minutes either to create the lovely oboe and bassoon duet in the Trio section of the next movement, as the ideal counterpart to the offbeat foot-stamps in the rustic Menuetto.

On the other hand, although the last movement - which is all dance and no song - cannot have been very easy for Schubert, he sustains its presto impetus with the assurance of a composer with twice his experience. He derives his second subject from a fragment of the main theme, bases the whole of the development on that same busy fragment, recapitulates the main theme not in the tonic but in the dominant, so as to prolong the tension, and so makes way for a coda stronger and more extended that we have a right to expect in a work of such generally small-scale proportions.