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Schubert spent 1825 to 1828 working on the symphony that he hoped would establish him as the next great Viennese composer after Beethoven, who had died in 1827. It was intended to be Schubert’s “Eroica.”

It was only after Salieri’s death in 1825 that Schubert could study Beethoven’s music without feeling guilt. This crash course in Beethoven influenced Schubert’s final quartets, piano trios, sonatas, symphonies, his last mass and his great string quintet.

By now Schubert had served on the board of the Music Guild, served as president for a year and had access to the guild’s concert hall and orchestra. But in rehearsing this monumental symphony, the musicians complained that it was too difficult for them to play. Schubert always had bad luck when it came to concerts of his music, and he was forced to substitute his most trivial juvenile symphony for the symphony he hoped would put him on the map. Decades after Schubert’s death, Felix Mendelssohn would premiere the Ninth Symphony in a cut down version. This is yet another mature voice for Schubert, totally different from his early symphonies or even his previous mature symphony. This is a composer on a mission.

This video of the finale starts a bit late, but I’ve chosen it because of its use of period instruments and Minkowski’s conducting, which is phenomenal. Note the wooden flutes, brass instruments without valves and string instruments using gut, not steel.

The first subject is in C Major, the tonic key for the symphony.

1:35 – The second subject is in G Major, the expected key.

3:47 – Minkowski skips the exposition repeat, which is good; Schubert’s first ending is not convincing. As the development begins, the first thing you hear are the flutes and oboes playing the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Then Schubert actually develops the Beethoven theme before settling into developing his own material. On one level, it’s a very short development, but Schubert has a surprise waiting.

5:50 – Schubert should recap in C Major, but he recaps in E-flat. Is this a wrong key recapitulation? Yet more development? Learning from Beethoven, Schubert has blurred the line between development and recap. It’s a mixture of both. He runs through the keys like a development section: C minor, F Major, F minor, and then a decisive cadence in E Major.

7:20 – From E Major, just two chords place the second subject in the correct key of C Major.

9:25 – Like the Third Symphony, the Ninth uses repetitions as the basis of the finale’s coda, but this time Schubert has learned what to do with them. Each repetition ratchets up the tension, tighter and tighter, until –

10:11 – The release is absolutely hair raising. Stabbing Cs from the cellos and basses blow you away. Schubert races through that passage a second time.

10:40 – The resolution uses its own repeats to tie it together. Minkowski closes it decisively without lingering on the fermata at the end.

Schubert: Symphony #9 in C, D. 944, fourth movement