Performance Tradition, Steady and Proportional Tempos, and the First Movements of Schubert's Symphonies

Abstract

erhaps no part of the present-day symphonic 296 repertory is performed with less regard for the composer's text than Schubert's symphonies. This holds true not only for the rarely performed earlier ones but also for the most admired and treasured. Although it has been known for some years that the old Breitkopf & Hartel collected edition corrected a striking dissonance in the first movement of the Unfinished Symphony D759, nearly all recordings follow the correction.' Less well known are the textual problems of the Tragic Symphony D417, where entire passages are retained that Schubert deleted.2 Fortunately, for Symphonies Nos. 1-3 we now have texts in the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe that are independent of the corrupted ones in the old Breitkopf edition (which were prepared by none other than Johannes Brahms). But there are other problems in rendering Schubert's music for which even the most faithful and conscientious student cannot provide definite solutions. To mention two examples: i) Are dotted rhythms in proximity to triplets to be treated as three-way divisions? 2) Are Schubert's hair-pins to be interpreted as a decrescendo or an accent? A third problem concerns tempo. Nearly a decade has passed since William S. Newman published his definitive paper, Freedom of