Month: February 2011

This is yet another much-played tune on CBC Radio!  Wish there was a better recording than this, but this is all I could find!

Not the best recording, but still, if you have ten minutes, it will be well-worth your time and attentions!

This is Franz Peter Schubert’s (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828) Symphony No. 8 in B minor (sometimes renumbered as Symphony No.), commonly known as the “Unfinished Symphony” (German: Unvollendete), D.759, was started in 1822 but left with only two movements known to be complete.

Although he died at the impossibly young age of 31, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous “Unfinished Symphony”), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. Appreciation of his music during his lifetime was limited, but interest in Schubert’s work increased dramatically in the decades following his death at the age of 31. Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn, among others, discovered and championed his works in the 19th Century. Today, Schubert is admired as one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music and he remains one of the most frequently performed composers.