What is the nickname of Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor?

Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor is nicknamed the “Unfinished Symphony.” The name reflects its incomplete state: Schubert completed two movements, left a scherzo in partial form, and left no confirmed finale.

Schubert began the symphony in 1822, but the reasons he stopped working on it are unknown. The surviving first movement is dark and dramatic, while the second moves into the warmer key of E major and has a lyrical, song-like character. These contrasting moods helped make the work one of Schubert’s most admired compositions.

For decades, the manuscript remained with Schubert’s friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner. It was not publicly performed until 1865, when conductor Johann von Herbeck introduced the two completed movements in Vienna. The symphony’s popularity grew rapidly afterward, even though audiences heard only part of the planned work.

Some musicians have proposed completions using Schubert’s surviving scherzo sketches or music from his incidental score for Rosamunde. Those reconstructions are modern interpretations, not evidence that Schubert finished the original. The work is also sometimes numbered Symphony No. 7 because later cataloguing systems arrange Schubert’s symphonies differently.