Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, Pierre Bartholomée - Schubert: Symphony No. 10 in D major (1994) CD-Rip

This is the less commonly available of two recordings made of a complete realization of Schubert's "Tenth" Symphony in D Major (D. 936A), a collection of piano sketches of parts of three movements with some instrumentation notes, which Schubert was working on during the very last days of his life. Even though Schubert may have intended the work to have only three movements, with the last serving as a combination Scherzo/Finale, for this recording Bartholomee adds in the scherzo from an earlier abandoned symphony in D Major (D. 780A) as the third movement; Schubert evidently recycled this prototype as the scherzo of the Great Symphony.

Likewise, in the first two movements, one can hear definite echoes of ideas that Schubert had abandoned years earlier in the famous "Unfinished" Symphony, most notably in the B minor cello pizzicato opening of the second movement. The last movement, with its wind melody over accompanying string triplets, appears to be a further development of a similar idea in the finale of the Great Symphony, but also reflecting the more extensive contrapuntal studies which Schubert had just undertaken.

The first complete realization of D. 936 A was made by the noted Schubert scholar and biographer Brian Newbould, and recorded as part of the Marriner/Academy of St. Martin in the Fields cycle, along with Schubert's other extant fragmentary symphonic work - another must-own for Schubert enthusiasts. However, I find this realization by Pierre Bartholomee, released one year later, to be the preferable of the two. Bartholomee's broader tempi and bolder instrumentation seem to be more in line with the direction that Schubert had taken with the Great Symphony, with its adventurous modulations and increased reliance on the winds, notably the trombones. (One of Schubert's first movement sketches is a contrastingly somber four-part theme starting in B flat minor (!) marked only "trombones". Did the inventive Schubert plan on employing the first trombone quartet in symphonic history?)

Indeed, there is much left only to speculation - but Bartholomee and the Liege Philharmonic give us an enthralling and satisfying glimpse at how Schubert's symphonic music might have evolved had he lived longer.