by Franz Schubert (Himmelpfortgrund, nr. Vienna [now part of the city], 1797 – Vienna, 1828)

Even though Schubert himself appended the subtitle “Tragic” to his Fourth Symphony, we should not expect tragedy on the scale of Beethoven's Fifth, or even on the scale of Schubert's own Erlkönig, written a year before the “Tragic.” As a writer of orchestral works, the 19-year-old Schubert was not yet ready to take on the challenge of Beethoven's heroic style. He was working within the classical tradition of Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven, and was making some highly individual and mature contributions to that tradition. (His style changed fundamentally after the “Unfinished” Symphony of 1823, when he would fully rise to the Beethovenian challenge.)

The overwhelming majority of 18th-century symphonies was written in the major mode, traditionally associated with happiness. On the rare occasions when composers chose a minor key, the mood tended to darken and become more agitated. This manner of writing was a musical counterpart of the Sturm und Drang (“storm and stress”), a literary movement in Germany that favored tragic moods and paved the way for Romanticism. It was almost inevitable that Schubert would try his hand at the “tragic” genre established by his predecessors.

In their minor-key works, Haydn and Mozart often engaged in harmonic adventures not often found when the tonality was major. The young Schubert, well aware that in the minor, business is never as usual, offered one of his most complex and profound Adagio introductions he had written to date. Frequent key changes take the music as far from the initial C minor as the Classical tonal system allows (reaching the remotest part of the system with a long-held G-flat major chord). Upon a no less eventful return to C minor, the Allegro section begins. It is a stormy movement with a first theme of great urgency and a contrasting lyrical second theme. The harmonic experiments continue throughout the movement with some rather unorthodox key changes that anticipated later developments in 19th-century harmony. The accumulated harmonic tensions are finally resolved at the end of the movement when the tonality changes to the major. Usually, composers of minor-key symphonies saved this particular move for their last movements, but Schubert couldn't wait that long to switch from high drama to joyful celebration.

The second-movement Andante opens with a gentle major-key melody played by the strings, soon followed by an agitated passage in the minor mode. Schubert's model here seems to have been the second movement of Mozart's Symphony in E-flat, No. 39, built on a similar thematic contrast. In his book on Mozart, musicologist Maynard Solomon found a particularly apt description for lyrical slow movement with dramatic middle sections: “Trouble in Paradise.” As in the Mozart, the “trouble” goes away at the end of the movement, and peace and order are restored in “Paradise.”

The third movement follows the outlines of a Scherzo, but the mood, instead of being playful, reverts to the Sturm und Drang world of the first movement, with an angular melody emphasizing chromatic harmonies which tend to destabilize the feeling of tonality. The Trio (middle section) brings temporary relief from the tensions, but even here the unusual key changes bespeak a certain sense of restlessness.

In the last movement, Schubert introduces a “dark” C-minor theme that, at the same time, is gentle and graceful in character. The final switch to the major mode occurs sooner than it did in the first movement. Whatever “tragedy” there was at the beginning has surely been overcome by now.

Notes By Peter Laki