The fate of this symphony, composed in 1821, could yield the stuff of a novel. The fascinating score, a complete sketch (1304 bars on 84 folios) but unfortunately only fragmentarily completed, was donated to Felix M e n d e l s s o h n B a r t h o l d y in 1846 by S c h u b e r t ’s brother Ferdinand. After Mendelssohn’s untimely death in 1847 his brother Paul donated the score in 1861 to the English musicologist Sir George G r o v e. After Sir Arthur S u l l i v a n had abandoned the task of completion, Grove then made the score available to John Francis B a r n e t t, who finally succeeded in producing a complete version suitable for performance. He prepared a copy of Schubert’s score in red ink, whereas his additions and annotations were written in black ink. Barnett’s version was first performed on May 5 th , 1883 at the Crystal Palace in London by A u g u s t M a n n s’ O r c h e s t r a . Breitkopf & Härtel (Leipzig) published, engraved and printed Barnett’s reduction for Piano (2 hands) in 1885; it has survived in many libraries. In his Schubert Catalogue, Ernst D e u t s c h assigned the number D 729 to the work. …
