To finish or not to finish?

Here’s your starter for ten. What’s the most famous unfinished piece of classical music in the world? Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, his Symphony No. 8, of course, which is usually played as a two-movement torso, bereft of the Scherzo and finale which a symphony of its provenance would normally include. Usually, but not always. The latest man to attempt to fill in the missing parts is the Russian composer Anton Safronov, whose version the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is due to play for the first time on 6 November at the Royal Festival Hall in London under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski, with performances both in the main evening concert at 7.30 p.m. and in a ‘Night Shift’ event beginning at 10 p.m.

From time to time all of us leave undone those things which we ought to have done. Composers are not exempt, but sometimes it’s not really their fault. Given the choice, Mozart, I am sure, would much rather have got to the final bar of his Requiem than give the legend-writers fodder for exercising their creative talents through his premature demise. Likewise Puccini and Berg would have preferred not to have left the completion of their final operas, Turandot and Lulu, to others. On other occasions a piece’s progress might be halted because of the necessity of dealing with that other certainty of life, tax. It would be showing unsound business sense to continue writing a piece that’s not been commissioned if a nice fat commission — with, however, an early deadline — drops on to your doormat. That seems to be why Schubert didn’t finish his Seventh Symphony. The composer laid it aside in order to concentrate on his opera Alfonso und Estrella, written for Weimar, and simply never got round to resuming work. And sometimes, of course, a piece is discontinued just because it doesn’t seem to be working out.