Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Composer (1756–1791)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age resulted in more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoires. Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture".
Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. At age five, he was already competent on keyboard and violin, had begun to compose, and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position. Mozart's search for employment led to positions in Paris, Mannheim, Munich, and again in Salzburg, during which he wrote his five violin concertos, Sinfonia Concertante, and Concerto for Flute and Harp, as well as sacred pieces and masses, the motet "Exsultate Jubilate", and the opera "Idomeneo," among other works.
While visiting Vienna in 1781, Mozart was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He stayed in Vienna, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During Mozart's early years in Vienna, he produced several notable works, such as the opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail", the "Great Mass in C minor", the "Haydn" Quartets and a number of symphonies. Throughout his Vienna years, Mozart composed over a dozen piano concertos, many considered some of his greatest achievements. In the final years of his life, Mozart wrote many of his best-known works, including his last three symphonies, culminating in the "Jupiter" Symphony, the serenade "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", his Clarinet Concerto, the operas "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni", "Così fan tutte" and "The Magic Flute" and his Requiem. The Requiem was largely unfinished at the time of his death at age 35, the circumstances of which are uncertain and much mythologised.
Life and career.
Early life.
Family and childhood.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl, at Getreidegasse 9 in Salzburg. Salzburg was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in the Holy Roman Empire (today in Austria). He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy. His elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed "Nannerl". Mozart was baptised the day after his birth, at St. Rupert's Cathedral in Salzburg. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinised form, as "Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart". He generally called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart" as an adult, but his name had many variants.
Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, then an Imperial Free City in the Holy Roman Empire, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as the fourth violinist in the musical establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian, the ruling Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg. Leopold became the orchestra's deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his son's birth, Leopold published a violin textbook, "Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule", which achieved success.
When Nannerl was seven, she began keyboard lessons with her father, while her three-year-old brother looked on. Years later, after her brother's death, she reminisced:
He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good... In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier... He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time... At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down.
These early pieces, K. 1–5, were recorded in the "Nannerl Notenbuch". There is some scholarly debate about whether Mozart was four or five years old when he created his first musical compositions, though there is little doubt that Mozart composed his first three pieces of music within a few weeks of each other: K. 1a, 1b, and 1c.
In his early years, Wolfgang's father was his only teacher. Along with music, he taught his children languages and academic subjects. Biographer Solomon notes that, while Leopold was a devoted teacher to his children, there is evidence that Mozart was keen to progress beyond what he was taught. His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were of his initiative and came as a surprise to Leopold, who eventually gave up composing when his son's musical talents became evident.
1762–73: Travel.
While Wolfgang was young, his family made several European journeys in which he and Nannerl performed as child prodigies. These began with an exhibition in 1762 at the court of Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Courts in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour followed, spanning three and a half years, taking the family to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, Dover, The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Mechelen and again to Paris, and back home via Zürich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip, Wolfgang met many musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other composers. A particularly significant influence was Johann Christian Bach, whom he visited in London in 1764 and 1765. When he was eight years old, Mozart wrote his first symphony, most of which was probably transcribed by his father.
The family trips were often challenging, and travel conditions were primitive. They had to wait for invitations and reimbursement from the nobility, and they endured long, near-fatal illnesses far from home: first Leopold (London, summer 1764), then both children (The Hague, autumn 1765). The family again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768.
After one year in Salzburg, Leopold and Wolfgang set off for Italy, leaving Anna Maria and Nannerl at home. This tour lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. As with earlier journeys, Leopold wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer. Wolfgang met Josef Mysliveček and Giovanni Battista Martini in Bologna and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica. There exists a myth, according to which, while in Rome, he heard Gregorio Allegri's "Miserere" twice in performance in the Sistine Chapel. Allegedly, he subsequently wrote it out from memory, thus producing the "first unauthorised copy of this closely guarded property of the Vatican". However, both the origin and plausibility of this account are disputed.
In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera "Mitridate, re di Ponto" (1770), which was performed with success. This led to further opera commissions. He returned with his father twice to Milan (August–December 1771; October 1772 – March 1773) for the composition and premieres of "Ascanio in Alba" (1771) and "Lucio Silla" (1772). Leopold hoped these visits would result in a professional appointment for his son, and indeed ruling Archduke Ferdinand contemplated hiring Mozart, but owing to his mother Empress Maria Theresa's reluctance to employ "useless people", the matter was dropped and Leopold's hopes were never realised. Toward the end of the journey, Mozart wrote the solo motet "Exsultate, jubilate", K.165.
1773–77: Employment at the Salzburg court.
After finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had many friends and admirers in Salzburg and had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, masses, serenades, and a few minor operas. Between April and December 1775, Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five (the only ones he ever wrote), which steadily increased in their musical sophistication. The last three—K. 216, K. 218, K. 219—are now staples of the repertoire. In 1776, he turned his efforts to piano concertos, culminating in the E♭ concerto K. 271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work.
Despite these artistic successes, Mozart grew increasingly discontented with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere. One reason was his low salary, 150 florins a year; Mozart longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theatre was closed, especially since the other theatre in Salzburg was primarily reserved for visiting troupes.
Two long expeditions in search of work interrupted this long Salzburg stay. Mozart and his father visited Vienna from 14 July to 26 September 1773, and Munich from 6December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera "La finta giardiniera".
1777–78: Journey to Paris.
In August 1777, Mozart resigned his position at Salzburg and on 23 September ventured out once more in search of employment, with visits to Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and Munich.
Mozart became acquainted with members of the famous orchestra in Mannheim, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber, one of four daughters of a musical family. There were prospects of employment in Mannheim, but they came to nothing, and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March 1778 to continue his search. One of his letters from Paris hints at a possible post as an organist at Versailles, but Mozart was not interested in such an appointment. He fell into debt and took to pawning valuables. The nadir of the visit occurred when Mozart's mother was taken ill and died on 3July 1778. There had been delays in calling a doctor—probably, according to Halliwell, because of a lack of funds. Mozart stayed with Melchior Grimm at Marquise d'Épinay's residence, 5 rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin.
While Mozart was in Paris, his father was pursuing opportunities of employment for him in Salzburg. With the support of the local nobility, Mozart was offered a post as court organist and concertmaster. The annual salary was 450 florins, but he was reluctant to accept. By that time, relations between Grimm and Mozart had cooled, and Mozart moved out. After leaving Paris in September 1778 for Strasbourg, he lingered in Mannheim and Munich, still hoping to obtain an appointment outside Salzburg. In Munich, he again encountered Aloysia, now a very successful singer, but she was no longer interested in him. Mozart finally returned to Salzburg on 15 January 1779 and took up his new appointment, but his discontent with Salzburg remained undiminished.
Among the better-known works which Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the A minor piano sonata, K. 310/300d, the "Paris" Symphony (No. 31), which were performed in Paris on 12 and 18 June 1778; and the Concerto for Flute and Harp in C major, K. 299/297c.
Vienna.
1781: Departure.
In January 1781, Mozart's opera "Idomeneo" premiered with "considerable success" in Munich. The following March, Mozart was summoned to Vienna, where his employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was attending the celebrations for the accession of Joseph II to the Austrian throne. For Colloredo, this was simply a matter of wanting his musical servant to be at hand (Mozart indeed was required to dine in Colloredo's establishment with the valets and cooks). He planned a bigger career as he continued in the archbishop's service; for example, he wrote to his father:
My main goal right now is to meet the emperor in some agreeable fashion, I am absolutely determined he should get to know me. I would be so happy if I could whip through my opera for him and then play a fugue or two, for that's what he likes.
Mozart did indeed soon meet the Emperor, who eventually was to support his career substantially with commissions and a part-time position.
In the same letter to his father just quoted, Mozart outlined his plans to participate as a soloist in the concerts of the "Tonkünstler-Societät", a prominent benefit concert series; this plan as well came to pass after the local nobility prevailed on Colloredo to drop his opposition.
Colloredo's wish to prevent Mozart from performing outside his establishment was in other cases carried through, raising the composer's anger; one example was a chance to perform before the Emperor at Countess Thun's for a fee equal to half of his yearly Salzburg salary.
The quarrel with the archbishop came to a head in May: Mozart attempted to resign and was refused. The following month, permission was granted, but in a grossly insulting way: the composer was dismissed literally "with a kick in the arse", administered by the archbishop's steward, Count Arco. Mozart decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer.
The quarrel with Colloredo was more difficult for Mozart because his father sided against him. Hoping fervently that he would obediently follow Colloredo back to Salzburg, Mozart's father exchanged intense letters with his son, urging him to be reconciled with their employer. Mozart passionately defended his intention to pursue an independent career in Vienna. The debate ended when Mozart was dismissed by the archbishop, freeing himself both of his employer and of his father's demands to return. Solomon characterizes Mozart's resignation as a "revolutionary step" that significantly altered the course of his life.
Early years.
Mozart's new career in Vienna began well. He often performed as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi on 24 December 1781, and he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna". He also prospered as a composer, and in 1782 completed the opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" ("The Abduction from the Seraglio"), which premiered on 16 July 1782 and achieved considerable success. The work was soon being performed "throughout German-speaking Europe", and thoroughly established Mozart's reputation as a composer.
Near the height of his quarrels with Colloredo, Mozart moved in with the Weber family, who had moved to Vienna from Mannheim. The family's father, Fridolin, had died, and the Webers were now taking in lodgers to make ends meet.
Marriage and children.
After failing to win the hand of Aloysia Weber, who was now married to the actor and artist Joseph Lange, Mozart's interest shifted to the third daughter of the family, Constanze.
The courtship did not go entirely smoothly; surviving correspondence indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly broke up in April 1782, over an episode involving jealousy (Constanze had permitted another young man to measure her calves in a parlour game). Mozart also faced a very difficult task getting permission for the marriage from his father, Leopold.
The marriage took place in an atmosphere of crisis. Daniel Heartz suggests that eventually, Constanze moved in with Mozart, which would have placed her in disgrace by the mores of the time. Mozart wrote to Leopold on 31 July 1782, "All the good and well-intentioned advice you have sent fails to address the case of a man who has already gone so far with a maiden. Further postponement is out of the question." Heartz relates, "Constanze's sister Sophie had tearfully declared that her mother would send the police after Constanze if she did not return home [presumably from Mozart's apartment]." On 4 August, Mozart wrote to Baroness von Waldstätten, asking: "Can the police here enter anyone's house in this way? Perhaps it is only a ruse of Madame Weber to get her daughter back. If not, I know no better remedy than to marry Constanze tomorrow morning or if possible today."
The couple were finally married on 4August 1782 in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the day before his father's consenting letter arrived in the mail. In the marriage contract, Constanze "assigns to her bridegroom five hundred gulden which ... the latter has promised to augment with one thousand gulden", with the total "to pass to the survivor". Further, all joint acquisitions during the marriage were to remain the common property of both.
The couple had six children, of whom only two survived infancy:
1782–87.
In 1782 and 1783, Mozart became intimately acquainted with the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel as a result of the influence of Gottfried van Swieten, who owned many manuscripts of the Baroque masters. Mozart's study of these scores inspired compositions in the Baroque style and later influenced his musical language, for example in fugal passages in "Die Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute") and the finale of Symphony No. 41.
In 1783, Mozart and his wife visited his family in Salzburg. His father and sister were cordially polite to Constanze, but the visit prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C minor. Though not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg, with Constanze singing a solo part.
Mozart met Joseph Haydn in Vienna around 1784, and the two composers became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) date from the period 1782 to 1785, and are judged to be a response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. Haydn wrote, "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years" and in 1785 told Mozart's father: "I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition."
From 1782 to 1785 Mozart mounted concerts with himself as a soloist, presenting three or four new piano concertos in each season. Since space in the theatres was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large room in the Trattnerhof apartment building, and the ballroom of the Mehlgrube restaurant. The concerts were very popular, and his concertos premiered there are still firm fixtures in the repertoire. Solomon writes that during this period, Mozart created "a harmonious connection between an eager composer-performer and a delighted audience, which was given the opportunity of witnessing the transformation and perfection of a major musical genre".
With substantial returns from his concerts and elsewhere, Mozart and his wife adopted a more luxurious lifestyle. They moved to an expensive apartment, with a yearly rent of 460 florins. Mozart bought a fine fortepiano from Anton Walter for about 900 florins, and a billiard table for about 300. The Mozarts sent their son Karl Thomas to an expensive boarding school and kept servants. During this period Mozart saved little of his income.
On 14 December 1784, Mozart became a Freemason, admitted to the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit ("Beneficence"). Freemasonry played an essential role in the remainder of Mozart's life: he attended meetings, a number of his friends were Masons, and on various occasions, he composed Masonic music, e.g. the Maurerische Trauermusik.
1786–87: Return to opera.
Despite the great success of "Die Entführung aus dem Serail", Mozart did little operatic writing for the next four years, producing only two unfinished works and the one-act "Der Schauspieldirektor". He focused instead on his career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos. Around the end of 1785, Mozart moved away from keyboard writing and began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. The year 1786 saw the successful premiere of "Le nozze di Figaro" in Vienna. Its reception in Prague later in the year was even warmer, and this led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte: the opera "Don Giovanni", which premiered in October 1787 to acclaim in Prague, but less success in Vienna during 1788. The two are among Mozart's most famous works and are mainstays of operatic repertoire today, though at their premieres their musical complexity caused difficulty both for listeners and for performers. These developments were not witnessed by Mozart's father, who had died on 28 May 1787.
In December 1787, Mozart finally obtained a steady post under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer", a post that had fallen vacant the previous month on the death of Gluck. It was a part-time appointment, paying just 800 florins per year, and required Mozart only to compose dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal (see "Mozart and dance"). This modest income became important to Mozart when hard times arrived. Court records show that Joseph aimed to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna in pursuit of better prospects.
In 1787, the young Ludwig van Beethoven spent several weeks in Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart. No reliable records survive to indicate whether the two composers ever met.
Later years.
1788–90.
Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's circumstances worsened. Around 1786, he ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his income shrank. This was a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because of the Austro-Turkish War: both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music had declined. According to Solomon, in 1788, Mozart saw a 66% decline in his income compared to his best years in 1781.
By mid-1788, Mozart and his family had moved from central Vienna to the suburb of Alsergrund. Although it has been suggested that Mozart aimed to reduce his rental expenses by moving to a suburb, as he wrote in his letter to Michael von Puchberg, Mozart had not reduced his expenses but merely increased the housing space at his disposal. Mozart began to borrow money, most often from his friend and fellow mason Puchberg; "a pitiful sequence of letters pleading for loans" survives. Maynard Solomon and others have suggested that Mozart was suffering from depression, and it seems his musical output slowed. Major works of the period include the last three symphonies (Nos. 39, 40, and 41, all from 1788), and the last of the three Da Ponte operas, "Così fan tutte", premiered in 1790.
Around this time, Mozart made some long journeys hoping to improve his fortunes, visiting Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin in the spring of 1789, and Frankfurt, Mannheim, and other German cities in 1790.
1791.
Mozart's last year was, until his final illness struck, a time of high productivity—and by some accounts, one of personal recovery. He composed a great deal, including some of his most admired works: the opera "The Magic Flute"; the final piano concerto (K. 595 in B♭); the Clarinet Concerto K. 622; the last in his series of string quintets (K. 614 in E♭); the motet Ave verum corpus K. 618; and the unfinished Requiem K. 626.
Mozart's financial situation, a source of anxiety in 1790, finally began to improve. Although the evidence is inconclusive, it appears that wealthy patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam pledged annuities to Mozart in return for the occasional composition. He is thought to have benefited from the sale of dance music written in his role as Imperial chamber composer. Mozart no longer borrowed large sums from Puchberg and began to pay off his debts.
He experienced great satisfaction in the public success of some of his works, notably "The Magic Flute" (which was performed several times in the short period between its premiere and Mozart's death) and the Little Masonic Cantata K. 623, premiered on 17 November 1791.
Final illness and death.
Mozart fell ill while in Prague for the premiere, on 6September 1791, of his opera "La clemenza di Tito", which was written in that same year on commission for Emperor Leopold II's coronation festivities. He continued his professional functions for some time and conducted the premiere of "The Magic Flute" on 30 September. His health deteriorated on 20 November, at which point he became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.
Mozart was nursed in his final days by his wife and her youngest sister and was attended by the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset. He was mentally occupied with the task of finishing his Requiem, but the evidence that he dictated passages to his student Franz Xaver Süssmayr is minimal.
Mozart died in his home on at 12:55 am. The "New Grove" describes his funeral:
Mozart was interred in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the St. Marx Cemetery outside the city on 7December. If, as later reports say, no mourners attended, that too is consistent with Viennese burial customs at the time; later Otto Jahn (1856) wrote that Salieri, Süssmayr, van Swieten and two other musicians were present. The tale of a storm and snow is false; the day was calm and mild.
The expression "common grave" refers to neither a communal grave nor a pauper's grave, but an individual grave for a member of the common people (i.e., not the aristocracy). Common graves were subject to excavation after ten years; the graves of aristocrats were not.
The cause of Mozart's death is not known with certainty. The official record of "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary fever", referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds) is more a symptomatic description than a diagnosis. Researchers have suggested more than a hundred causes of death, including acute rheumatic fever, streptococcal infection, trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment.
Mozart's modest funeral did not reflect his standing with the public as a composer; memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended. Indeed, in the period immediately after his death, his reputation rose substantially. Solomon describes an "unprecedented wave of enthusiasm" for his work; biographies were written first by Schlichtegroll, Niemetschek, and Nissen, and publishers vied to produce complete editions of his works.
Appearance and character.
Mozart's physical appearance was described by tenor Michael Kelly in his "Reminiscences": "a remarkably small man, very thin and pale, with a profusion of fine, fair hair of which he was rather vain". His early biographer Niemetschek wrote, "there was nothing special about [his] physique... He was small and his countenance, except for his large intense eyes, gave no signs of his genius." His facial complexion was pitted, a reminder of his childhood case of smallpox. Of his voice, his wife later wrote that it "was a tenor, rather soft in speaking and delicate in singing, but when anything excited him, or it became necessary to exert it, it was both powerful and energetic."
He loved elegant clothing. Kelly remembered him at a rehearsal: "[He] was on the stage with his crimson pelisse and gold-laced cocked hat, giving the time of the music to the orchestra." Based on paintings that researchers were able to find of Mozart, he seemed to wear a white wig for most of his formal occasions—researchers of the Salzburg Mozarteum declared that only one of his fourteen portraits they had found showed him without his wig.
Mozart usually worked long and hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches and drafts; unlike Beethoven's, these are mostly not preserved, as his wife sought to destroy them after his death.
Mozart lived at the centre of the Viennese musical world and knew a significant number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, and aristocrats, including some acquaintance with Emperor Joseph II. Solomon considers his three closest friends to have been Gottfried von Jacquin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani; others included his elder colleague Joseph Haydn, singers Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, and the horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart carried on a kind of friendly mockery, often with Leutgeb as the butt of Mozart's practical jokes.
He enjoyed billiards, dancing, and kept pets, including a canary, a starling, a dog, and a horse for recreational riding. He had a startling fondness for scatological humour, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, and in his correspondence with his sister and parents. Mozart also wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends. He had an ear for languages, and having travelled all over Europe as a boy, was fluent in Latin, Italian, and French in addition to his native Salzburg dialect of German. He possibly also understood and spoke some English, having jokingly written "You are an ass" after his 19-year-old student Thomas Attwood made a thoughtless mistake on his exercise papers.
Mozart was raised a Catholic and remained a devout member of the Church throughout his life. He embraced the teachings of Freemasonry in 1784.
Works, musical style, and innovations.
Style.
Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetype of the Classical style. At the time he began composing, European music was dominated by the "style galant", a reaction against the highly evolved intricacy of the Baroque. Progressively, and in large part at the hands of Mozart himself, the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque emerged once more, moderated and disciplined by new forms, and adapted to a new aesthetic and social milieu. Mozart was a versatile composer, and wrote in every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. These forms were not new, but Mozart advanced their technical sophistication and emotional reach. He almost single-handedly developed and popularised the Classical piano concerto. He wrote a great deal of religious music, including large-scale masses, as well as dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.
The central traits of the Classical style are all present in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are the hallmarks of his work, but simplistic notions of its delicacy mask the exceptional power of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491; the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550; and the opera "Don Giovanni". Charles Rosen makes the point forcefully:
It is only through recognising the violence and sensuality at the centre of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterisation of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous.
During his last decade, Mozart frequently exploited chromatic harmony. A notable instance is his "String Quartet in C major", K. 465 (1785), whose introduction abounds in chromatic suspensions, giving rise to the work's nickname, the "Dissonance" quartet.
Mozart had a gift for absorbing and adapting the valuable features of others' music. His travels helped in the forging of a unique compositional language. In London as a child, he met J. C. Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna he met with other compositional influences, as well as the avant-garde capabilities of the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy, he encountered the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which deeply affected the evolution of his practice. In London and Italy, the galant style was in the ascendent: simple, light music with a mania for cadencing; an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other harmonies; symmetrical phrases; and clearly articulated partitions in the overall form of movements. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are homotonal (all three movements having the same key signature, with the slow middle movement being in the relative minor). Others mimic the works of J. C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms turned out by Viennese composers.
As Mozart matured, he progressively incorporated more features adapted from the Baroque. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A major K. 201 has a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had included three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set. The influence of the "Sturm und Drang" ("Storm and Stress") period in music, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era, is evident in the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor K. 183 is another excellent example.
Mozart would sometimes switch his focus between operas and instrumental music. He produced operas in each of the prevailing styles: opera buffa, such as "Le nozze di Figaro", "Don Giovanni", and "Così fan tutte"; opera seria, such as "Idomeneo"; and Singspiel, of which "Die Zauberflöte" is the most famous example by any composer. In his later operas, he employed subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and tone colour, for emotional depth and to mark dramatic shifts. Here, his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted: his increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concertos influenced his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was in turn reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.
Köchel catalogue.
For unambiguous identification of works by Mozart, a "Köchel catalogue number" is used. This is a unique number assigned, in regular chronological order, to every one of his known works. A work is referenced by the abbreviation "K." or "KV" followed by this number. The first edition of the catalogue was completed in 1862 by Ludwig von Köchel. It has since been repeatedly updated, as scholarly research improves knowledge of the dates and authenticity of individual works.
Instruments.
Although some of Mozart's early pieces were written for harpsichord, he also became acquainted in his early years with fortepianos made by Regensburg builder Franz Jakob Späth. Later when Mozart was visiting Augsburg, he was impressed by Stein fortepianos and shared this in a letter to his father. On 22 October 1777, Mozart had premiered his triple-piano concerto, K. 242, on instruments provided by Stein. The Augsburg Cathedral organist Demmler was playing the first, Mozart the second and Stein the third part. In 1783, when living in Vienna he purchased an instrument by Walter. Leopold Mozart confirmed the attachment which Mozart had with his Walter fortepiano: "It is impossible to describe the hustle and bustle. Your brother's pianoforte has been moved at least twelve times from his house to the theatre or to someone else's house."
Influence.
His most famous pupil was Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between the Classical and Romantic eras whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child. More important is the influence Mozart had on composers of later generations. Ever since the surge in his reputation after his death, studying his scores has been a standard part of a classical musician's training.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart's junior by fifteen years, was deeply influenced by his work, with which he was acquainted as a teenager. He is thought to have performed Mozart's operas while playing in the court orchestra at Bonn and travelled to Vienna in 1787 hoping to study with the older composer. Some of have direct models in comparable works by Mozart, and he wrote cadenzas (WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto K. 466.
Composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46). Others include Fernando Sor's Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart (1821), Mikhail Glinka's Variations on a Theme from Mozart's Opera "The Magic Flute" (1822), Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from "Don Giovanni" (1827), and Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonata K. 331. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who revered Mozart, wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G, "Mozartiana" (1887), as a tribute to him.
References.
Citations.
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Sources.
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Further reading.
"See for an extensive bibliography"
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External links.
Digitized documents
Sheet music

Symphony No. 41 (Mozart)
Last symphony (1788) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, on 10 August 1788. The longest and last symphony that he composed, it is regarded by many critics as among the greatest symphonies in classical music. The work is nicknamed the "Jupiter" Symphony, probably coined by the impresario Johann Peter Salomon.
The autograph manuscript of the symphony is preserved in the Berlin State Library.
Instrumentation.
The symphony is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in C and F, 2 trumpets in C, timpani in C and G, and strings.
Composition and premiere.
Symphony No. 41 is the last of a set of three that Mozart composed in rapid succession during the summer of 1788. No. 39 was completed on 26 June and No. 40 on 25 July. Nikolaus Harnoncourt argues that Mozart composed the three symphonies as a unified work, pointing, among other things, to the fact that the Symphony No. 41, as the final work, has no introduction (unlike No. 39) but has a grand finale.
Around the same time as he composed the three symphonies, Mozart was writing his piano trios in E major (K. 542) and C major (K. 548), his piano sonata No. 16 in C (K. 545)—the so-called "Sonata facile", and a violin sonatina (K. 547).
It is not known for certain whether Symphony No. 41 was ever performed in the composer's lifetime. According to Otto Erich Deutsch, Mozart was preparing to hold a series of "Concerts in the Casino" around this time in a new casino in the Spiegelgasse owned by Philipp Otto. Mozart even sent a pair of tickets for this series to his friend Michael Puchberg. Historians have not determined whether the concert series was held or was cancelled for lack of interest. However, the new symphony in C was performed at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig in 1789—at least according to its concert program.
Movements.
The four movements are arranged in the traditional symphonic form of the Classical era:
The symphony typically has a duration of about 33 minutes.
I. Allegro vivace.
The sonata form first movement's main theme begins with contrasting motifs: a threefold tutti outburst on the fundamental tone (respectively, by an ascending motion leading in a triplet from the dominant tone underneath to the fundamental one), followed by a more lyrical response.
<score sound>
\new Staff \with { instrumentName = #"Fl."} \relative c" {
 \key c \major
 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t
 \tempo "Allegro vivace" 4 = 140
 \time 4/4
 \set Staff.midiInstrument = "flute"
 c'4\f r8 \times 2/3 { g16( a b } c4) r8 \times 2/3 { g16( a b } |
 c4) r r2 | R1 | R1 |
 g4\f r8 \times 2/3 { d16( e fis } g4) r8 \times 2/3 { d16( e fis } |
 g4) r4 r2 | R1 | R1 |
 c4 c8. c16 c4 c |
 a4 a8. a16 a4 a |
 b4 b8. b16 b4 b |
\new Staff \with { instrumentName = #"Vl. 1 "} \relative c" {
 \key c \major
 \time 4/4
 \set Staff.midiInstrument = "violin"
 c,4\f r8 \times 2/3 { g16( a b } c4) r8 \times 2/3 { g16( a b } |
 c4) r r r8 c'-.\p |
 c4.( b8 d4. c8) |
 g'2( f4) r |
 <g, g,>4\f r8 \times 2/3 { d16( e fis } g4) r8 \times 2/3 { d16( e fis } |
 g4) r r r8 d'-.\p |
 d4.( c8 g'4. f!8) |
 a2( g4) r |
 <g, e' c'>\f r8 g32^"Vl. 2"( f e d c4) <g' e' c' > |
 <f c' a'> r8 c'32^"Vl. 2"( bes a g f4) <a f'> |
 r8 d"32^"Vl. 2"( c b! a g4) <d b' g'> |
»
</score>
This exchange is heard twice and then followed by an extended series of fanfares. What follows is a transitional passage where the two contrasting motifs are expanded and developed. From there, the second theme group begins with a lyrical section in G major which ends suspended on a seventh chord and is followed by a stormy section in C minor. Following a full stop, the expositional coda begins which quotes Mozart's insertion aria "Un bacio di mano", K. 541 and then ends the exposition on a series of fanfares.
The development begins with a modulation from G major to E♭ major where the insertion-aria theme is then repeated and extensively developed. A false recapitulation then occurs where the movement's opening theme returns but softly and in F major. The first theme group's final flourishes then are extensively developed against a chromatically falling bass followed by a restatement of the end of the insertion aria then leading to C major for the true recapitulation. With the exception of the usual key transpositions and some expansion of the minor key sections, the recapitulation proceeds in a regular fashion.
<score sound>
II. Andante cantabile.
\relative c" {
 \key f \major
 \time 3/4
 \set Staff.midiInstrument = "string ensemble 2"
 \tempo "Andante cantabile"
 \tempo 4 = 70
 f,8.\p^\markup { \italic {con sordini}} (c16) a'4.. g32 (f
 e8) r8 bes'8-.\f r8 r4
 g8.\p (c,16) bes'4.. (a32 g
 f8) r8 c'8-.\f r8 r4
 f8.\p (c16) a'8. (\tuplet 3/2 {g32 f e} g16 f e d)
 c8 (b bes4 a)
</score>
The second movement, also in sonata form, is a sarabande of the French type in F major (the subdominant key of C major) similar to those found in the keyboard suites of J.S. Bach. This is the only symphonic slow movement of Mozart's to bear the indication "cantabile." The opening melody, played by muted violins, is never allowed to conclude without interruption. After a development section, the recapitulation begins in the subdominant key of B♭ major, though a secondary development section disrupts the recapitulation with rhythmic figures before the return to F.
<score sound>
III. Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio.
\relative c" {
 \key c \major
 \time 3/4
 \set Staff.midiInstrument = "string ensemble 1"
 \tempo "Menuetto: Allegretto"
 \tempo 4 = 130
 g'2\p (fis4 f! e d c8) r8 b8-. r8 c-. r8
 e2 (d8) r8
 a'2 (g4 fis f e d8) r8 c8-. r8 d-. r8
 f2 (e8) r8
 d'2\f (cis4 c!8) r8 a-. r8 fis-. r8
 d'2 (cis4 c!8) r8 a-. r8 fis-. r8
 d'-. r8 d-. r8 d-. r8
 e2 c8 (a)
 c2 a8 (fis)
 g4 r4 r4 \bar ":|."
</score>
The third movement, a "menuetto" marked "allegretto" is similar to a Ländler, a popular Austrian folk dance form. Midway through the movement, there is a chromatic progression in which sparse imitative textures are presented by the woodwinds (bars 43–51) before the full orchestra returns. In the trio section of the movement, the four-note figure that will form the main theme of the last movement appears prominently (bars 68–71), but on the seventh degree of the scale rather than the first, and in a minor key rather than a major, giving it a very different character.
<score sound>
IV. Molto allegro.
\relative c" {
 \key c \major
 \time 2/2
 \set Staff.midiInstrument = "string ensemble 2"
 \tempo "Molto allegro"
 \tempo 4 = 210
 c1\p ( d f e)
 r4 a4-. a-. a-.
 g2. (f16 e d c)
 f4-. f-. e-. e-.
 cis8 (d e d) c (b a g)
 c1-.\f d-. f-. e-.
 r4 a4-. a-. a-.
 a2. (g16 f e d c4)
</score>
Finally, a distinctive characteristic of this symphony is the five-voice quintuple fugato (representing the five major themes) at the end of the fourth movement. But there are fugal sections throughout the movement either by developing one specific theme or by combining two or more themes together, as seen in the interplay between the woodwinds. The main theme consists of four notes:
Four additional themes are heard in the symphony's finale (which is in sonata form) and all five motifs are combined in the fugal coda.
In an article about the "Jupiter" Symphony, Sir George Grove wrote that "it is for the finale that Mozart has reserved all the resources of his science, and all the power, which no one seems to have possessed to the same degree with himself, of concealing that science, and making it the vehicle for music as pleasing as it is learned. Nowhere has he achieved more". Of the piece as a whole, he wrote that "It is the greatest orchestral work of the world which preceded the French Revolution".
The four-note theme is a common plainchant motif which can be traced back at least as far as Thomas Aquinas's "Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium" from the 13th century. It was very popular with Mozart. It makes a brief appearance as early as his Symphony No. 1 in 1764. Later, he used it in the Credo of an early "Missa Brevis" in F major, the first movement of his Symphony No. 33 and trio of the minuet of this symphony. It also appears in the first movement of the violin sonata K481 as the basis for the development section.
Scholars are certain Mozart studied Michael Haydn's Symphony No. 28 in C major, which also has a fugato in its finale and whose coda he very closely paraphrases for his own coda. Charles Sherman speculates that Mozart also studied Michael Haydn's Symphony No. 23 in D major because he "often requested his father Leopold to send him the latest fugue that Haydn had written". The Michael Haydn Symphony No. 39, written only a few weeks before Mozart's, also has a fugato in the finale, the theme of which begins with two whole notes. Sherman has pointed out other similarities between the two almost perfectly contemporaneous works. The four-note motif is also the main theme of the contrapuntal finale of Michael's elder brother Joseph's Symphony No. 13 in D major (1764).
Origin of the nickname.
According to Franz Mozart, Wolfgang's younger son, the symphony was given the name "Jupiter" by Johann Peter Salomon, who had settled in London in around 1781. The name has also been attributed to Johann Baptist Cramer, an English music publisher. Reportedly, from the first chords, Mozart's Symphony No. 41 reminded Cramer of Jupiter and his thunderbolts.
"The Times" of Thursday, May 8, 1817, carries an advertisement for a concert to be given in the Hanover Square Rooms on "Friday next, May 9" to include "Grand Sinfonie (Jupiter), Mozart". "The Morning Post" of Tuesday, June 3, 1817, carries an advertisement for printed music that includes: "The celebrated movement from Mozart's sympathy [sic], called 'Jupiter', arranged as a Duet, by J. Wilkins, 4s. [4 shillings]".
Responses and reception.
In a phrase ascribed to musicologist Elaine Sisman in her book "Mozart: The 'Jupiter' Symphony", most responses ranged "from admiring to adulatory, a gamut from A to A".
As summarized below, the symphony garnered approbation from critics, theorists, composers, and biographers and came to be viewed as a canonized masterwork known for its fugue and its overall structure that exuded clarity.
First recording.
The first known recording of the "Jupiter" Symphony is from around the beginning of World War I, issued by the Victor Talking Machine Company in its black label series, making it one of the first symphonies to be recorded using the acoustic recording technology.
The record labels list the Victor Concert Orchestra as the performers; they omit the conductor, who according to company ledgers was Walter B. Rogers.
The music was heavily abridged and issued on two records: 10-inch 17707 and 12-inch 35430. Victor published two widely separated takes of each of the first two movements under the same catalogue numbers. The distribution, recording dates, and approximate timings were as follows (data from corresponding matrix pages in the Discography of American Historical Recordings as indicated and physical copies of the records):
References.
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Sources

Symphony No. 41 (Michael Haydn)
Michael Haydn's Symphony No. 41 in A major, Perger 33, Sherman 41, MH 508, written in Salzburg in 1789, is the last symphony he wrote (he lived for 17 more years).
The symphony is scored for 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings. It is in three movements:
The last movement is a vigorous fugato, something this work has in common with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 41 in C major.
Discography.
This symphony has been recorded on LP by the Little Orchestra of London and the RIAS-Sinfonietta Berlin.
References.
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Symphony No. 41 (Haydn)
The Symphony No. 41 in C major, Hoboken I/41, is a festive symphony by Joseph Haydn. The symphony was composed by 1769. It is scored for flute, two oboes, bassoon, two French horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.
The work is in four movements:
The flute appears only in the slow movement where it is featured prominently in several elegant solo passages. This is not unusual for Haydn's symphonies. Using that type of solo usually would seem out of place in the classical symphony. He felt the complete freedom to innovate as he wished, as he was composing in the relatively isolated palace of Eszterháza.
References.
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Symphony No. 4 (Franz Schmidt)
Austro-Hungarian cellist and composer Franz Schmidt's Symphony No. 4 was completed in 1933, and received its premiere in 1934 under the direction of Oswald Kabasta at the Wiener Musikverein concert hall in Vienna. The work was composed following the unexpected death in childbirth of Schmidt's daughter, Emma, and conceptualized by the composer as a requiem in her honor. Symphony No. 4 is often considered the finest work in Schmidt's oeuvre.
Movements and analysis.
Symphony No. 4 is in the key of C Major and includes four movements, all performed attacca (without pause). Average performance duration ranges from 41 to 49 minutes.
I. Allegro molto moderato —
II. Adagio —
III. Molto Vivace —
IV. Tempo primo un poco sostenuto
"**The movement titles of Symphony No. 4 are often termed slightly differently, but refer to the same music. The above represents a mix of titling interpretations for the four movements of this work.**"
The work begins and ends with solos in the 1st trumpet and features prominent cello solos at the beginning of the Adagio, the first of which begins at the end of the first movement and serves as a bridge into the Adagio. This symphony is contemplative and reflective in nature, and it has been suggested that it represents Schmidt coming to terms with his own death in addition to his daughter's since the composer's physical health was in a period of serious decline around the time of composition. This is further evidenced by the lack of Mahlerian drama characteristic of much post-Romantic Austrian classical music.
Instrumentation.
Symphony No. 4 is scored for an orchestra consisting of 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets in Bb, clarinet in Eb, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 French horns, 3 trumpets in C, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (3), 2 harps, and strings.
Performances and recordings.
This work is not performed often or widely regarded by concertgoers as belonging to the standard repertoire. This may be due to Schmidt's perceived or alleged association with Nazism. However, it has notably been championed by prominent conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Zubin Mehta, Vassily Sinaisky, Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, Franz Welser-Möst, Simone Young, and Andrew Litton, who have performed and recorded the symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra respectively. Paavo Järvi included the work in a 2020 Deutsche Grammophon album featuring all four of Schmidt's symphonies along with the Intermezzo from the opera "Notre Dame". The album is titled "Franz Schmidt: Complete Symphonies". Most recently, Jonathon Berman, conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales has been released in 2024. ref name=":2" />

Symphony, K. 81 (Mozart)
The Symphony in D major "No. 44", K. 81/73l, may have been written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1770 in Rome, although it has sometimes also been attributed to his father Leopold Mozart. It is now also catalogued as Eisen D 14 (LMV VII:D14) in Cliff Eisen's catalogue of Leopold Mozart's symphonies.
The symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns and strings. In contemporary orchestras, it was also usual to include bassoons and harpsichord if they were available in the orchestra to reinforce the bass line and act as the continuo. The horns are silent for the second movement. The duration is approximately 10 minutes.
<score>
\relative c' {
 \tempo "Allegro"
 \key d \major
 d2\f fis4 a |
 d4 r r d' |
 \appoggiatura cis8 b4 a r d |
 \appoggiatura cis8 b4 a \appoggiatura a8 g fis16 g e8 r |
 fis16 g a b a8 fis, g[ e a a,]
</score>
The symphony consists of the following movements:
The form of the symphony is that of an Italian overture.
No autographs exist for Mozart's four D major symphonies written during his first trip to Italy (K. 81, K. 84, K. 95 and K. 97), and as such their authenticity is doubtful. A copy of K. 81, dated 25 April 1770, attributes the symphony to Wolfgang. A letter from 25 April 1770 from Mozart to his sister states that Leopold had copied one of his (Mozart's) symphonies so that the autograph could remain in the house. A catalogue of Breitkopf & Härtel lists Leopold as the composer, but the reason for this could be that Leopold, and not Wolfgang, presented the work to them.
In his edition of the Köchel catalogue, Alfred Einstein rejects the authorship of Leopold, stating that it would be strange if Leopold composed one of the most "charming and intelligent" of the Italian symphonies of 1770. However, in the similar case of the "Lambach" symphonies, the "more modern" "New Lambach" symphony turned out to be Leopold's work. Also, Neal Zaslaw disagrees with this viewpoint ("charming and intelligent") of K. 81, instead calling it "bright, superficial and conventional".
Bernhard Paumgartner assigned the symphony to Wolfgang, and stated (similarly to Wolfgang Gersthofer) that these four Italian symphonies are similar to each other, making it likely that they are all the work of the same composer, and that they are characteristic of Mozart's symphonies composed in Italy. Thus, they consider it very likely that Mozart was the author of all four symphonies.
The Alte Mozart-Ausgabe (published 1879–1882) gives the numbering sequence 1–41 for the 41 numbered symphonies. The unnumbered symphonies (some, including K. 81, published in supplements to the Alte-Mozart Ausgabe until 1910) are sometimes given numbers in the range 42 to 56, even though they were written earlier than Mozart's Symphony No. 41 (written in 1788). The symphony K. 81 is given the number 44 in this numbering scheme.
References.
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Symphony, K. 111+120 (Mozart)
1771 symphony by W. A. Mozart
The Symphony in D major "No. 48", K. 111+120, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1771. The first two movements are from the overture to the opera "Ascanio in Alba", K. 111, and the last movement, K. 120/111a, was composed separately.
<score sound="1">
\relative c" {
 \key d \major
 \tempo "Allegro assai"
 <d' d, d,>\f r8 d,16( e fis4) r8 fis16( g a4) a-! a-! r \grace b'16\p(a8 ) g16 a fis8 r \grace g16(fis8 ) e16 fis d8 r \grace e16(d8 ) cis16 d a8 r \grace b16(a8 ) g16 a fis8 r
</score>
The symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two horns in D, two trumpets in D, timpani and strings. The trumpets and timpani are silent for the second movement.
The symphony consists of the following movements:
The "Alte Mozart-Ausgabe" (published 1879–1882) gives the numbering sequence 1–41 for the 41 numbered symphonies. The unnumbered symphonies (some, including K. 120, published in supplements to the "Alte-Mozart Ausgabe" until 1910) are sometimes given numbers in the range 42 to 56, even though they were written earlier than Mozart's Symphony No. 41 (written in 1788). The symphony K. 111+120 is given the number 48 in this numbering scheme.
The final (Presto) movement of this symphony is also employed as the final movement of the "Musik zu einer Pantomime: Pantalon und Colombine" (Music to a Pantomime) in D major, K. 446/416d (1783, incomplete) in the completion and orchestration by Franz Beyer (recorded by Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields for "The Complete Mozart Edition").
Notes.
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Symphony No. 4 (Ustvolskaya)
Russian symphony by Galina Ustvolskaya
Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya's Symphony No. 4 (subtitled "Prayer") was composed between 1985 and 1987.
Its premiere was given by Dale Marrs (trumpet), Thomas Keemss (tam-tam), Ulrich Eisenlohr (piano) and Roswitha Sperber (contralto) in Heidelberg on 24 June 1988.
For a symphony the piece is exceptionally spare and short. It is scored for just four performers - trumpet, tam-tam, piano and contralto - and lasts between 6 and 8 minutes.
Like the second and third symphonies, the fourth symphony is based on the texts of the 11th-century German monk and musician Hermanus Contractus. The music of the symphony consists of three blocks or phrases which are repeated through various permutations whilst retaining a recognisable shape.
References.
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Symphony No. 4 (Tansman)
The Symphony No. 4 in C-sharp minor by Alexander Tansman was written between 1936 and 1939. In the meantime Tansman acquired French citizenship and married pianist Colette Cras, to whom the symphony is dedicated ("À ma femme"). Despite dating from his most successful period it wasn't premiered in his lifetime, only receiving its first performance in a 1998 studio recording by the Bamberg Symphony conducted by Israel Yinon, 12 years after the composer's death.
It lasts around 20/25 minutes and consists of three movements: a tense Allegro with a somber slow introduction, an introspective Adagio for strings alone and a contrapuntal finale fusing baroque and jazz influences which has been compared to Hindemith.
References.
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Symphony No. 4 (Prokofiev)
Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4 is actually two works, both using material created for "The Prodigal Son" ballet. The first, Op. 47, was completed in 1930 and premiered that November; it lasts about 22 minutes. The second, Op. 112, is too different to be termed a "revision"; made in 1947, it is about 37 minutes long, differs stylistically from the earlier work, reflecting a new context, and differs formally as well in its grander instrumentation.
Symphony No. 4, Op. 47.
Context and genesis.
As a concert pianist, Prokofiev travelled worldwide, and toured the United States during the 1925-26 season. In early 1927, he went on a two-month concert tour of the Soviet Union. He planned to return in 1928, but those plans fell through. In 1929, another planned Soviet tour was cancelled, this time because of a hand injury Prokofiev suffered in a car accident.
Throughout this time as a touring virtuoso, Prokofiev also continued to compose. Symphony No. 2 in D minor premiered in Paris under the baton of Serge Koussevitzky in the summer of 1925, to tepid critical response. At the same time, Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet impresario, suggested that Prokofiev write a ballet on a Soviet subject. The resulting piece was "Le pas d'acier" ("The Steel Step"), Prokofiev's third ballet for Diaghilev, which premiered in Paris in the summer of 1927. He had also been working on an opera entitled "The Fiery Angel", of which several premieres had been cancelled. He decided to salvage some of the material from the opera, and turned it into his Symphony No. 3 in C minor. In late 1928, with the aforementioned Soviet tour cancelled, Prokofiev decided to accept another ballet commission from Diaghilev. This piece, rather than being on futurist themes like "Le pas d'acier", was based on a Biblical story: "L'enfant Prodigue" (Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Bible). The moralistic, Biblical subject matter was not an anomaly; such subjects were popular in the Parisian ballet scene in the late 1920s.
As Prokofiev was composing "The Prodigal Son" in early 1929, he found that many of the themes he was creating would work better in a more developmental symphonic context, rather than the more episodic layout of a ballet. So, he began composing a new symphony, alongside the ballet. The two works share much of the same material, although one does not specifically borrow from the other: they were composed mostly concurrently. The ballet, "The Prodigal Son", premiered in Paris in the summer of 1929, to great critical acclaim. It would be the last collaboration between Diaghilev and Prokofiev, because Diaghilev died just months later, in August.
The symphony that resulted, Symphony No. 4, Op. 47, began from material originally written for the ballet's fourth number. Prokofiev expanded the material into a sonata form, and the resulting music is the first movement of Symphony No. 4. The rest of the symphony draws on material that appears in the ballet, or that Diaghilev rejected as not fitting his vision for the ballet.
Koussevitzky had been discussing a commission for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Prokofiev in 1929. Prokofiev's response was the Symphony No. 4. However, because the commission fee was lower than Prokofiev was willing to accept, Prokofiev only allowed the Boston Symphony to purchase the manuscript of the work, rather than commission it. This meant that Prokofiev received less money, and the Boston Symphony did not get the prestige of a commission. Prokofiev worked on the symphony on the long train rides he had to take during a tour of the United States in early 1930. However, because of disagreements with Koussevitzky, he returned to Paris in March, before the symphony's premiere in Boston in November.
Analysis.
Andante assai - Allegro eroico.
The first movement is in sonata form, beginning with an introduction and ending with a Coda. The introduction, exposition, development, recapitulation, and Coda are clearly distinguished by different tempo markings and time signatures. Though the movement begins and ends in C major the tonal center is ambiguous as it is constantly shifting.
The opening of the movement begins with a slow, newly composed introduction, a warm melody played by the woodwinds (ex.1). This melody also appears in the second movement.
This introduction then leads to the main section, marked allegro eroico. The vigorous, hard-edged theme is taken from the fourth number of the ballet. The excitement of the music is created by the constant 16th-note rhythm played by strings (ex.2). This "machine music" ostinato provides an important part of the texture. The