Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra 2

Franz Schubert’s legacy includes some 200 works that he had left unfinished — an almost unimaginable number! But that fact is in keeping with his life, which ended far too early, at just 31 years of age: what musical miracles would he have revealed to us had he lived longer? Shortly before his death, Schubert was working on a Symphony in D major (D 936 A), for which extensive sketches have been preserved. In 1989, the Italian composer Luciano Berio used them as the basis for his orchestral work Rendering: a creative encounter between two musical languages and epochs. And an example of the “open end” principle. Incidentally, Berio sensed the spirit of Gustav Mahler already shining through in Schubert’s fragment. Mahler, in turn, is represented by his Fifth Symphony. Its most famous movement is the Adagietto, which Luchino Visconti used in his 1971 film Death in Venice, helping to trigger the Mahler renaissance. This spellbinding music represents Mahler’s declaration of love to Alma Schindler. In a private score, he underlined the main melody with the words: “How much I love you, you my sun, I cannot tell you that with words. I can only lament to you my longing and love.”