n 1838, ten years after Schubert's death,
Robert Schumann visited Vienna and was shown the manuscript of the symphony at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde by Ferdinand Schubert. He took a copy that Ferdinand had given him back to Leipzig, where the entire work was performed publicly for the first time by
Felix Mendelssohn at the
Leipzig Gewandhaus on 21 March 1839.
[10] Schumann celebrated the event in the
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik with an ecstatic article in which, in a phrase destined to become famous, he hailed the symphony for its 'heavenly length'.
[11]
The symphony, however, was found to be very difficult for orchestras of the day because of its extremely lengthy woodwind and string parts. When Mendelssohn took the symphony to Paris in 1842 and London in 1844, orchestras flatly refused to play it; in London, the violinists are reputed to have collapsed in laughter when rehearsing the second subject of the finale.
[12]
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