Franz Schubert began thirteen symphonies, of which up to ten are generally numbered, but only completed seven; nonetheless, one of his incomplete symphonies, the Unfinished Symphony, is among his most popular works.
By 1818, Schubert had completed 6 symphonies:[1]
There is also an early unfinished symphony:
Apart from the Great C major (D. 944), all of Schubert's late symphony projects remained unfinished.[2]
Despite the Deutsch number, D 936A is a later work than D 944.[3]
Confusion arose quite early over the numbering of Schubert's symphonies, in particular the Great C major Symphony. George Grove, who rediscovered many of Schubert's symphonies, assigned the following numbering after his 1867 visit to Vienna:
Breitkopf & Härtel, when preparing the 1897 complete works publication, originally planned to publish only complete works (which would have given the Great C major No. 7), with "fragments", including the Unfinished and the D 729 sketch, receiving no number at all. When Johannes Brahms became general editor of that project, he assigned the following numbers:[4]
Some of the disagreement continued into the 20th century. George Grove in his 1908 Dictionary of Music and Musicians, assigned the Great C major as No. 10, and the Unfinished as No. 9 (it is unclear from his article which symphonies, fragmentary or otherwise, are Nos. 7 and 8).[5] The 1978 revision to the Deutsch catalogue leaves the order as follows:
As a consequence, generally available scores for the later symphonies may be published using conflicting numbers.[7]
Grove and Sullivan also suggested that there may have been a "lost" symphony. Immediately before Schubert's death, his friend Eduard von Bauernfeld recorded the existence of an additional symphony, dated 1828 (although this does not necessarily indicate the year of composition) named the "Letzte" or "Last" symphony. Brian Newbould believes that the "Last" symphony refers to a sketch in D major (D 936A), identified by Ernst Hilmar in 1977, and which was realised by Newbould as the Tenth Symphony.[8] The fragment was bound with other symphony fragments (D 615 and D 708A).[8]
In conclusion, the resulting and most current order followed by the English-speaking world is:
D 708A, D 729, D 759, and D 936A have been completed by Schubert scholar Brian Newbould.[9] [10] D 729 has additionally been completed by John Francis Barnett and Felix Weingartner.[11] Brian Newbould additionally orchestrated the existing sketches for D 615.[3]
. Franz Schubert, thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge. Otto Erich Deutsch. Bärenreiter. 1978. Catalog1978. 978-3-7618-0571-8. etal.
. Brian Newbould. 1999 . Schubert: The Music and the Man . University of California Press . 9780520219571 .
The following citations illustrate the confusion around the numbering of Schubert's late symphonies. The B minor Unfinished Symphony is variously published as No. 7 and No. 8, in both German and English. All of these editions appeared to be in print (or at least somewhat readily available) in 2008.