Symphony No. 4 "Tragic" in C minor, D 417

FRANZ SCHUBERT composed his FOURTH SYMPHONY in April 1816. At that time, the 19-year-old composer, having completed his studies at the Imperial Chapel School, where he had also studied composition with Antonio Salieri, had already written around 100 works in various genres, including his famous songs Erlkönig (The Erlking) and Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel).

This was a very active creative period for him; in the autumn of the same year, he composed his Fifth Symphony, as well as a string trio, a piano sonata, a number of piano pieces and dozens of songs. Yet it was also a time of disappointment – he felt dissatisfied with his work as an assistant teacher at his father’s school in Vienna, and his attempt to secure a post in Laibach (now Ljubljana) was unsuccessful.

It is therefore no coincidence that his Fourth Symphony differs from the bright, cheerful spirit of the first three: it has a more dramatic character and approaches the type of emotional expression associated with early Romanticism. For the first time in one of his large-scale works, Schubert chose a minor key; his other symphony in a minor key is the Unfinished Eighth. A few months after completing the Fourth, Schubert added the title "TRAGIC" to the first page of the manuscript.

The substantial work, lasting around 30 minutes, is built in the Classical four-movement form. The slow introductory Adagio may have been inspired by  The Representation of Chaos – the sombre opening of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. In the principal theme of the ensuing Allegro in the first movement, one can hear an echo of motifs from Beethoven’s String Quartet in C minor, Op. 18 No. 4. The lyrical second movement – Andante – is filled with the beautiful, flowing melodic writing so characteristic of Schubert’s songs. Although marked as a Minuet, the third movement, with its active rhythms and unexpected accents, is closer in character to the Beethovenian type of scherzo. The energetic, impetuous final Allegro unfolds in the familiar dramatic progression from darkness to light, culminating triumphantly in C major.

Schubert did not live to hear the symphony performed before a public audience. It was probably played only once after its completion, in a small circle, by Otto Hatwig’s modest amateur orchestra in Vienna, in which Schubert himself played the viola, as he also did at the regular quartet evenings of his family’s traditional home concerts. The true public premiere of the Fourth Symphony took place more than two decades after his death – on 19 November 1849 in Leipzig, at a memorial concert organised by the Euterpe Music Society and conducted by August Ferdinand Riccius. The public response, however, was rather cool. This was already the age of mature Romanticism and, alongside the masterpieces of Wagner, Liszt and Berlioz, Schubert’s symphony was received as an early attempt by the young composer in search of his own style. Its historical value was recognised as a stage in his development, but it was considered to lack the originality and scale of his later symphonies. Critics regarded the subtitle Tragic as unjustified, finding the work rather elegiac and melancholic. Only the second movement received unreserved acclaim, for its exquisite melodic writing, which foreshadowed the future great master of song. The original score of the symphony was not printed until 1884, under the editorship of Johannes Brahms, in the first complete edition of Schubert’s collected works.

Today, Schubert’s Fourth Symphony is in the repertoire of the world’s leading orchestras and, under the baton of renowned conductors, delights audiences across the globe.