Finishing the Unfinished

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 506, 8 November 1928, Page 14

Finishing the Unfinished

All-Fools’ Day Joke The European world o£ music was thrilled in the spring of 1903 by the announcement that Schubert’s Symphony In B Minor, the famous “Unfinished,” had been discovered in a complete .state —first and second movements as already known, and with them scherzo and finale. The news was heavily featured. It came to England through the Paris “Menestral,” which had taken it from the Leipzig “Signale.” The story was certainly interesting, says a writer in the “British Musician.” A pupil of the Graz School of Music (Austria) saw an old woman drop of exhaustion in the street. He lifted “her up, took her home, and looked after her. Full, of gratitude, and desiring to repay him for his kindness, she told him that many years before she had been in service to an elderly church musician, and that, going through the discarded rubbish of the household after his death, she had found a bundle of music manuscript and taken it away with her. She hobbled to a cupboard, rummaging among the contents, and found the bundle. The young man looked it through, and was thrilled to discover what he thought was a complete version of the great symphony. But it was all a joke. The issue of the “Signale” was dated April 1. Before and after the Schubert story came the preposterous general statements, reviews, reports and announcements (for example, an account of a work on Wagner and Animals; Vol. I. 600 pages, “Wagner and Mammals and Birds”; Vol. 11., 600 pages, “Wagner and Reptiles and Fishes”), and on the title-page of the issue was a remark to the effect that on this All-Fools’ Day of 1903 it was the editor’s wish to uncover a lighter side of music than was customarily revealed.

Ten concerts will be given next season by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, Albert Coates. Leo Blech of Germany, Pablo Casals, Emil Cooper of Russia, Hermann Abendroth and Felix Weingartner.