The first six symphonies of Schubert have many ties to Haydn, Mozart and the young Beethoven, and yet they are in every way characteristically Schubertian works. Schubert, who was 19 when he completed the work in 1816, added the title “Tragic”. This is rather misleading in that the fast main theme of the first movement is evocative of not Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, but rather. the “tempestuous” trend of the early 1770s, the “Sturm und Drang”. The intimate starting melody of Beethovenian beauty in the A-flat-major Andante is contrasted with an almost grotesquely awkward minor theme, which appears twice. Schubert calls the third movement a minuet; however, it is more a scherzo if anything else on account of its tempo and character. Right at the start it surprises the listener by the accentuation converting 3/4 time to 2/4 time. The finale is a sweeping, important movement. Its extensive harmonic scheme and musical fabric clearly betrays the features of nascent Romanticism.