IMSLP Forums

After addressing some of the administrators directly, I am posting this here as well as per their request, in order to obtain additional feedback from the community.

This thread is in regards to numbering systems in the Schubert output. Specifically, I am referring to the numbering systems for the piano sonatas, string quartets, symphonies, and masses.


Going over the primary sources of information regarding the Schubert output, namely the Deutsch Catalogue and the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe, I noticed that neither of these two sources provide any numbering for the piano sonatas, the string quartets or the masses. They do provide one for the symphonies, although there is much confusion with regard to Schubert's last symphonies (D.729, D.759, D.944 and D.936a). There seems to be 'universal' consensus for Symphonies 1-6, and I have not yet seen a number attached to either the D.615 or D.708a fragments, but for the four symphonies I listed above, there is not a general consensus. For example, "Symphony No. 7" could refer to D.729, or D.759; "Symphony No.8" could refer to D.759 or D.944.


There also seems to be some confusion with the numbering of the piano sonatas. This may be due to the fact that there are a few numbering systems and several sonatas that are fragments, and there seems to be no consistency on numbering a fragment or not (such as D.655). As the current numbering system stands on IMSLP, there are 21 numbered sonatas. However, this system does not coincide, for example, with that of the Wiener Urtext Edition (in IMSLP, D.655 is No.12, in the WUE it is not numbered). There are a few other discrepancies with the WUE numbering system, not that this particular edition is more 'official' than others...


There seems to be less controversy with the numbering of the string quartets and the masses. I think this is probably due to the fact that there are not multiple numbering systems for these works (or at least I have not encountered more than one yet...)


Because of these issues, I was wondering if IMSLP would consider the following suggestions to use for the titles of workpages and/or the workpages themselves:

For all the symphonies, provide only key and Deutsch number, but not attach a particular number to them.

For all the piano sonatas, provide only key and Deutsch number, but not attach a particular number to them.

For the masses and string quartets, provide only key and Deutsch number, or include the current number attached to them in parenthesis, given that it does not appear in either Deutsch or the NSA.

I know these suggestions are somewhat radical and woud involve a number of changes, but I just wanted to bring this topic up for everybody's consideration. Thanks in advance to anybody that can provide additional insight.

Carlos

There used to be confusion in the past about the numbering of the symphonies in the past (because of the publication dates of the posthumous works and the (non-)existance of a so-called "Gastein" symphony) but the general worldwide is now:

7: E major symphony D729 completed only in short score, only the beginning is orchestrated by Schubert.
8: B minor, the Unfinished
9: Great C Major
10: D major symphony from 1828, unfinished

This numbering is accepted to such a degree worldwide that we can call it standard now.

But the numbering of the piano sonatas is still such a mess that it would be better indeed to refer to them by key and D-number alone.