Unfinished History:

A New Account of Franz Schubert's B Minor Symphony

David Montgomery

• Publisher: Brown Walker Press (FL)
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781627346467
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Musica

This study addresses a long-standing mythology concerning the "Unfinished" Symphony and reviews anachronistic performance practices that prevent listeners from experiencing the work as a product of its own time. David Montgomery's Unfinished History challenges the traditional story of Franz Schubert's B-minor Symphony and searches for a more credible account of this great work. Written for all Schubert lovers from lay readers to musicians and musicologists, the book reviews a strangely persistent mythology concerning the symphony, continuing with the first in-depth examination of its manuscript and related documents. Details of handwriting, notation, paper, watermarks, compositional procedures, and stylistic contexts suggest a new year and country of origin for the "Unfinished" Symphony, a possible explanation for the absence of a finale in the sketches, and an alternative account of the score's disappearance and prolonged sequestration. The author concludes with an essay on performing the work in the context of its own times. The story of the Unfinished has been based partly upon three conflicting letters written in old age by Schubert's former secretary long after the composer's death. A fourth document in this insupportable mythology is a photograph of a lost letter purportedly sent from Schubert to the Styrian Music Society in Graz, promising to send them a symphony. Many historians still believe the letter to be genuine, despite the fact that its signature has been traced. David Montgomery's handwriting analysis finally identifies the real writer of this odd missive, clearing a further path to new research.

CHAPTER ONE

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SCRIPTS AND HANDWRITING

LETTERING AND DOCUMENTS

Schubert and his generation in German-speaking lands wrote mostly in two basic scripts: Old German Kurrentschrift (“running script”) and Schulschrift (“school script”), the latter often called “Normalschrift”. Schulschrift was written in “Latin” or “Roman” lettering, and thus one also hears it called “Lateinschrift”. Both scripts were cursive, as opposed to printed “Fraktur” (“Gothic”). Fraktur and Kurrent related in important ways to a third script, “Kanzleischrift” (“office” script), an ornate handwritten alternative to Fraktur often used on official and legal documents. To my knowledge, Schubert wrote in Kanzleischrift seldom, if at all.1 On the other hand, this script appears often in letters and on compositions written by his “secretary”, Joseph Hüttenbrenner, who held a government job in Vienna. Joseph’s brother, Anselm Hüttenbrenner, had studied law and also knew Kanzleischrift—a fact that will acquire more significance in the course of this study.

Ex. 1:1a. Joseph Hüttenbrenner, first page, upper margin of “Abendlied” (1831), showing three different scripts: Kanzleischrit [“Abendlied”], Kurrentschrift [“von” and “Heinrich Hüttenbrenner”] and Schulschrift [“Quartett” and “Dr”]. KUG o:1811.

Ex. 1:1b. Anselm Hüttenbrenner, three scripts in the upper margin of the first page of “Frühlings Wiederkehr” (1838): Kanzleischrift [“Frühlings Wiederkehr”], Kurrentschrift [“Gedicht von”], and Schulschrift (with some letters from Kurrent) [“Josefine von Bemekhazy” and “Allegretto”]. KUG o:63.

In the years before, during, and after Schubert’s lifetime, letters by educated German writers and speakers were written mostly in Kurrent, with proper names and foreign words in Latin lettering, and some individual characters, words, or even whole lines in Kanzleischrift.2 In concentrated working situations Schubert used informal (and sometimes merely scribbled)3 versions of Schul- and Kurrentschrift that were more expedient than artistic, but he was able to write with elegance.

Plates I and II represent the kurrentschrift4 letters taught in German-speaking lands (including the U.S.) in the nineteenth century:

Plate I. Upper case letter set in Kurrent from the nineteenth century, including the ligature “Sch”.5

Plate II. Lower case letter set in Kurrent from the nineteenth century, including the ligatures “ch”, “sch”, and the sharp “s” (see fn. 5).

SCHULSCHRIFT (“LATEINSCHRIFT” OR “NORMALSCHRIFT”)

Schulschrift was used for almost all of the handwriting on the cover page of Schubert’s B-minor Symphony and for all of the musical instruction in the score itself. Only the word “Octob.” is written in Kurrent (Chapter Two, Ex. 2:6b). Schulschrift is readily legible to people today who read Western languages. The following tables derive from Kurze Anleitung zum Schönschreiben (Vienna, 1832):

Plate III. Schulschrift (“Normal”- or “Lateinschrift”). ÖNB http://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AC09658896.6

To illustrate the difference between fair (formal) and working (informal) Schulschrift in Schubert’s writing, I have selected two examples of the word “Ouverture”. They appear back-to-back in the manuscript of the E-minor Overture D648, one on the cover page and the other on the opposite side above the first measures of the music:

Ex. 1:2a. D648 (1819). Formal, or fair (calligraphic) Schulschrift. WB Mh 122.

Ex. 1:2b. D648 (1819). Informal, or working Schulschrift. WB Mh 122.

A schulschrift “signature” is far less personal than a kurrentschrift signature, and, in its clearest calligraphic form, it was easily imitated. All children in Schubert’s time, apparently, learned a standardized Schulschrift in the early years of schooling. For this reason, we cannot be certain about the authorship of some schulschrift writing, including “signatures” on manuscripts of the day. In addition to widely recognizable upper-case letters, Schulschrift also featured rounded lower-case letters such as “e”, “m”, “n”, and “u” (much like those in our modern writing), as well as a more universally identifiable “r” and “h”. Schubert and his circle sometimes mixed kurrent- and schulschrift letters within words.

Below are ten examples of the name “Schubert” in Schulschrift. Seven of them are authentic, two are not, and one we will question in Chapter Two. I have removed their backgrounds in order to level the field. Readers who wish to guess at the inauthentic examples will find the answers in the footnote.7 These examples are different, one from another, and yet remarkably similar by virtue of a commonly-learned and impersonal script. This commonality and relative simplicity creates difficulty in identifying the writer in a case of suspected inauthenticity:

Ex. 1:3. Ten copies of the surname “Schubert”, taken from signatures in Schulschrift.

Establishing authenticity is most difficult in cases of high calligraphy, a stage of formality even more carefully executed than in the fair script shown above:

Ex. 1:4a. Menuetti D89/90 (1813). WB Mh 123.

Ex. 1:4b. Minona D152 (1815). WB Mh 70.

Ex. 1:4c. Overture in B-flat for piano, 4 hands D668 (1819). WB Mh 166.

I have examined over fifty schulschrift signature renderings of Franz Schubert’s name on his manuscripts, probably most of them written by Schubert himself. Despite remarkable likenesses between sections—for example, letter group (“chub”) between numbers 6–8 in Ex 1.3—I found no two signatures that could be superimposed entirely, one upon the other, with reasonable graphic correspondence. This observation will take on importance later in this chapter when we compare the “signatures” on the Dankschreiben and the D759 cover page.

THE PERSONAL MARK IN SCHULSCHRIFT

With the addition of a personal mark, a name written in Schulschrift could become more of an actual signature. Schubert’s personal mark was a relatively fixed design of three or four vertical strokes (representing “M”), and cross ovals (for “P”) followed by letters “i” and “a” in a fanciful reduction of the traditional term manu propria (“signed with my own hand” or “from my own hand”). The presence of the mark is no guarantee of authenticity, but for modern scholars it offers an extra small measure of certainty. To be sure, the personal mark changed somewhat with each new signature and would not have been difficult to simulate; nevertheless, it remained, identifiably, Schubert’s own. The following example is taken from his revised manuscript of Des Teufels Lustschloss D84, once owned by Joseph Hüttenbrenner.

Ex. 1:5. D84 Schubert’s identification on the cover page of Des Teufels Lustschloss (1813/14). WB Mh 2032.

Anselm Hüttenbrenner’s personal mark, shown here appended to a schulschrift signature, was similar in design and spirit to Schubert’s mark:

Ex....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Author Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Scripts and Handwriting
• Chapter 2 - The Orchestration Manuscript
• Chapter 3 - Schubert’s Working Methods for D759
• Chapter 4 - Structural Criteria for Redating the Symphony
• Chapter 5 - Chronology
• Chapter 6 - An Essay on Performance
• General Bibliography
• Index