Several (classical) composers left partitions of symphonies that for one or several reasons could be considered as incomplete or unfinished.
The archetypical unfinished symphony is Schubert's Symphony D. 759 (1822), featuring two fully orchestrated movements, while from some sketches it is clear Schubert originally intended to create a traditional four-movement symphony.
After the discovery of the two completed movements of this symphony (in the archives of the orchestra to which Schubert had sent them, several decades after the composer's death) music historians and scholars toiled to "prove" the composition was complete in this form, and indeed, in its two-movement form it proved to be one of Schubert's most cherished compositions.
This contributed to "unfinished symphonies" receiving in the public opinion an exceptional stature, and they were sought after everywere, virtually no composer escaping the fuss made over unfinished or rejected youth works, or ultimate symphonies they were unable to complete, e.g.:
- Bruckner:
- Schubert (apart from the archetypical "8th"):
- The "7th": a "grand symphony" was announced by Schubert several years before starting to compose the 8th or the 9th - scholars have suggested several other compositions of Schubert as "outline" of this eluding grand symphony. See List of compositions by Schubert#Symphonies
- Yet another symphonic sketch became the "10th" or "Last" symphony
- Sibelius:
- Heroic searches for the sketches of his 8th symphony, several times announced during his life, but probably destroyed by the composer.
- Mahler:
- 10th symphony, various orchestrations of the (piano) sketches of the 3 final movements of this symphony made after his death.
- Beethoven:
- At least two reconstruction attempts of symhonies not published by Beethoven during his lifetime (one of an early work; the other of a later abandoned work)
- Bizet
- After eleven years of tinkering (1860-1871), with a partial performance in 1869, Bizet could still not present a final version of his Roma symphony. In other words: it was a failure, even the "Unfinished Symphony" enthousiasts saw no hope for this overelaborated romantic misfit. Was Bizet to stay without a success in the symphonic genre? and even worse: without a success in the "unfinished" genre? Happily several decades after his death one of his rejected juvenile try-outs, the unpretentious Symphony in C , was re-discovered, needed only minor "finishing" and became an all-time favorite.
- Borodin
- Boudewijn Buckinx ([1])
Even composers that never composed symphonies in the sense this genre had taken since Haydn, shared in the "unfinished ultimate work" frenzy, from the late Romantic era on:
- Bach
- The Art of Fugue, Bach's ultimate and unfinished work left many questions: since for most of the pieces contained in that work it was not clear which instrument(s) they were intended to be played on, many interprets felt the urge to elaborate and orchestrate them. Also reshuffeling the order of the pieces for a performance was part of the "completion" efforts. But most of all it was the "final" (?) triple-fugue of this collection that received most attention as Bach's ultimate Unfinished creation: already in the 19th century Ferruccio Busoni "re-created" this piece of music in his Fantasia Contrappuntistica, but many more attempts at finishing off Bach would follow. Other interprets, not surprisingly, admired the etheral "non-ending" of this fugue - at the point where the three musical themes were supposed to start mixing - as its most eternal "un-ending" feature. So, posthumously, Bach got something comparable to an Unfinished Symphony too.
See also
