Schubert: Death and the Maiden & Symphony No. 8

Schubert’s music has been arranged by many other composers, though few have succeeded in amplifying the astonishing drama and pathos of a masterpiece such as the Death and the Maiden Quartet as has Andy Stein, who writes: ‘I have tried to create a late classical / early Romantic symphony out of this great chamber work, so that it perhaps would sound as if Schubert himself had conceived it in this form’. The reconstruction of the Scherzo of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony is based on fragments from the composer’s notebooks. The last movement uses segments from Schubert’s incidental music for Rosamunde, written shortly after he had set aside the Symphony, and which scholars believe may have been intended for its finale.