Schubert: Overture in C, Symphony No. 3/Schubert-Leppard: Grand Duo in C

Four years before his death in 1828, Schubert hinted to some friends that he was working on a new symphony. No symphony ever turned up, and the story spread that one work from that time, a ”Grand Duo” for piano duet, was actually Schubert’s own version of the missing orchestral score. Violinist Joseph Joachim made his own Brahmsian orchestration of the work in 1855. Now British-born conductor Raymond Leppard has reorchestrated the Duo in a style closer to Schubert’s own idiom. Leppard argues that Schubert’s piano version, massive and difficult, couldn’t have been his final intention. Balderdash. Innovative the work may be, but that’s part of its greatness, and the result here, with Leppard’s excellent Indianapolis Symphony, still can’t match the original piano version. Better is the ”pure” Schubert that fills out the rest of the disc, especially the Third Symphony, a blithe boyhood confection full of clear hints of the mature genius just down the road. C+