Symphony No. 35 (Mozart) form of creative work symphony
Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385, also known as the Haffner Symphony, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1782. It was commissioned by the Haffners, a prominent Salzburg family, for the occasion of the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner the Younger. The Haffner Symphony should not be confused with the eight-movement Haffner Serenade, another piece Mozart wrote on commission from the same family in 1776.Background
The Haffner Symphony did not start its life as a symphony, but rather as a serenade to be used as background music for the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner. The Mozarts knew the Haffners through Sigmund Haffner's father, Sigmund Haffner the Elder, who had been mayor of Salzburg and who had helped them out on their early tours of Europe. The elder Haffner died in 1772, but the families remained in contact. In 1776, the younger Haffner commissioned a serenade for the wedding of Marie Elizabeth Haffner to Franz Xavier Spath. This work became the famous Haffner Serenade, which was so successful that, when the younger Sigmund Haffner was to be ennobled, it was only natural that Mozart was called upon to write the music for the occasion. The request to write music actually came via Mozart's father on 20 July 1782 when Mozart had no spare time. Mozart was "up to his eyeballs with work". Not only was he teaching, but he also had to rearrange the score of his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail before July 28. In addition to these demands, his proposed marriage to Constanze Weber was threatened by a number of complications, including moving to a house on the Hohe Brücke in Vienna. Nevertheless, Mozart worked on the music, and sent it through section by section to his father. What Mozart wrote at this time was a new serenade – a completely different work from the serenade presented four years earlier – with an introductory march and two minuets. According to historical evidence, it is quite possible that Mozart did not actually meet his father's deadline to have the music completed by Sigmund Haffner's ennoblement. Mozart later reworked this music into what we now know as the Haffner Symphony.
At the end of December 1782, Mozart decided to present music from the new Haffner serenade at a concert. After asking his father to send the score of the serenade back again, Mozart was amazed at its quality, given the fact that it was composed in so short a time. He set to work to make a number of alterations to the score in order to convert the new Haffner serenade into the Haffner symphony. These alterations included dropping the introductory march (K. 385a) and one of the two minuets (now lost). In addition, the repeat signs were removed from the end of the first movement's exposition. Mozart also gave the Haffner Symphony a fuller sound by adding two flutes and two clarinets to the woodwind section of the first and last movements. These added woodwind parts are not new melodic material, but simply a doubling of octaves within the woodwinds.The Haffner Symphony, as we know it today, received its first performance on 23 March 1783 at the Vienna Burgtheater. At the concert, Mozart opened matters with the first three movements of this symphony, the aria "Se il padre perdei" from Idomeneo (described in his letter to his father of March 29 that year as his Munich opera), piano concerto no. 13 K. 415, a scena K. 369 (a genre related to the concert aria), the concertante movements from his last Finalmusik K. 320, his piano concerto K. 175 (with a new finale), and another scena, "Parto, m'affretto" (from the opera Lucio Silla, which he had composed for Milan); at this point he improvised a fugue "because the Emperor was present" and then two sets of variations (K. 398 on an aria by Paisiello and K. 455 on an aria by Gluck). After this, Madame (Aloysia) Lange sang his new rondo (K. 416?) and then to finish the concert, the last movement of the Haffner Symphony was played.  The performance of the Haffner Symphony at this concert proved very successful.
Cuyler (1995) classifies the Haffner, Linz (No. 36) and Prague (No. 38) symphonies as "three symphonies that transcend all his former symphonic works."
The autograph manuscript currently resides in the archives of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.
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