Symphony No. 9 (Schubert) Symphony No. 9 (Schubert) The Symphony No. 9 in C major, D 944, known as the Great (published in 1840 as "Symphony No. 7 in C Major", listed as No. 8 in the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe), is the final symphony completed by Franz Schubert. Originally called "The Great C major" to distinguish it from his Symphony No. 6, the "Little C major", the subtitle is now usually taken as a reference to the symphony's majesty. Unusually long for a symphony of its time, a typical performance of "The Great" takes around 55 minutes, though it can also be played in as
Symphony, D 615 (Schubert) 615 and D 708A only survive as sketches in piano score. He returned to writing directly into orchestral score for his seventh symphony, although piano sketches exist for the eighth. These four unfinished symphonies thus show how Schubert was, as he stated in a letter from the mid-1820s, preoccupied with "planning a path to [write] a grand symphony [plans he would realize in the ninth symphony]", with his string quartets, octet and these unfinished symphonies as intermediate steps in this plan. The unusually large number of unfinished symphonies on the way to the ninth from the sixth show how preoccupied