Abstract

The paper outlines the theoretical bases and concrete procedures for a listening workshop that focuses on the first movement of Franz Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony". It is designed for pupils in the third year of middle school. The whole project hinges on the notion of "narrative", with preliminary discussion of this in aesthetic, historical, semiological and analytical terms. This concept is understood in the metaphorical sense that has been adopted by musicologists (Fubini, Bartoli) and which is shared "a priori" by the pupils themselves. At the same time, "narrative" is also used in a more technical sense - that is, employing the categories that have been developed by analyses of narrative form and function. These are the guidelines within which the listening workshop develops, starting from the concept of "tale". This latter is taken as a plotline with an introduction, beginning, culmination ("Spannung") and epilogue. It is seen as involving: principal and secondary characters in various relations to each other; series of different actions; a specific temporal and spatial setting; and a certain narrative "tone". In listening to this work by Shubert, the pupils are encouraged to "read" the significance of the passages that are presented to them. The aim is that they identify the crucial features of the musical discourse in the light of their respective functions and the way in which they form part of an articulated temporal whole.