Symphony No. 8 (Schubert) by default incomplete), and the even more undeniable fact that Schubert had begun a third movement in B minor (leaving precisely 30 bars of fully orchestrated scherzo and 112 succeeding bars in short score), stands against the view that the two completed movements can legitimately stand alone. Reviewing the premiere of the symphony in 1865, the music critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: He ended by stressing that the symphony is among Schubert's most beautiful instrumental works. In 1927–28, Felix Weingartner—better known as a classical conductor and the first to record all nine Beethoven symphonies and the second, after Stokowski, to record
Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven) No. 96 () and in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25, K. 503 (). Such examples show that "short-short-short-long" rhythms were a regular part of the musical language of the composers of Beethoven's day. It seems likely that whether or not Beethoven deliberately, or unconsciously, wove a single rhythmic motif through the Fifth Symphony will (in Hopkins's words) "remain eternally open to debate." Folia is a dance form with a distinctive rhythm and harmony, which was used by many composers from the Renaissance well into the 19th and even 20th centuries, often in the context of a theme and variations. It