San Francisco Symphony - Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major, K.551, Jupiter San Francisco Symphony Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major, K.551, Jupiter Symphony No. 41 in C major, K.551, Jupiter JOANNES CHRISOSTOMUS WOLFGANG GOTTLIEB MOZART BORN: January 27, 1756. Salzburg, Austria DIED: December 5, 1791. Vienna COMPOSED: July 25 (at earliest) through August 10, 1788 WORLD PREMIERE: No information has survived concerning its premiere, although there is no secure information pro or contra the oft-repeated assertion that it was not played in Mozart’s lifetime.

Indeed, a concert of Vienna’s Tonkünstler Societät in April 1791 did include “a grand symphony” by Mozart, and this may have been this work; it does include trumpets and timpani, which was what usually invited the description of “grand symphony.” US PREMIERE: January 7, 1843, Henry Schmidt conducted the Academy of Music in a performance at the Boston Odeon SFS PERFORMANCES: FIRST—February 7, 1913, with Henry Hadley conducting. MOST RECENT—April 2010, with Jeffrey Kahane conducting INSTRUMENTATION: Flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings DURATION: About 30 mins Mozart’s biography contains such an amazing procession of experiences and achievements that it reads almost like an eighteenth-century novel. The story of his final three symphonies occupies a full chapter of this life-as-novel—unfortunately, one that falls not terribly far from its end. More than two centuries after they were written, these works—the Symphonies No.

39 in E-flat major, No. 40 in G minor, and No. 41 in C major (Jupiter)—continue to stand at the summit of the symphonic repertory, where they keep company with a small and supremely select group of fellow-masterpieces by the A-list of composers. Almost incredibly, all three were produced in the space of about nine weeks, in the summer of 1788: he began his Symphony No. 39 around the beginning of June, not quite a month after Don Giovanni was granted a lukewarm reception at its Vienna premiere, and went on to complete the succeeding symphonies on July 25 and August 10. Each is a very full-scale work, comprising the standard four movements of the late-Classical symphony. Twelve movements in nine weeks would mean that, on the average, Mozart expended five days and a few hours on the composition of each movement. That doesn’t factor in that he was writing other pieces at the same time, giving piano lessons, tending a sick wife, enduring the death of a six-month-old daughter, entertaining friends, moving to a new apartment, and pestering his fellow freemason Michael Puchberg for financial loans.

Mozart, of course, had no idea that these would be his last symphonies. He undoubtedly had every expectation of living well into the nineteenth century; and although that is not what happened, at least he had another three and a half years in which he might well have written further symphonies. Since he didn’t, these three works stand as the summa of his achievement in symphonic music, and in their strikingly different characters we glimpse not only a drawing together of strands of development that had enriched his orchestral music to that point but also hints of what the future might have held. In the Symphony No. 41, Mozart seems intent on showing off his sheer brilliance as a composer. Its emotional range is wide indeed, prefiguring the vast expressive canvas that would emerge in the symphonies of Beethoven. In performance, one may be struck by how this work, though filled with incident, unrolls with a luxurious stride, at least until its finale. Certainly compared to its predecessor, the edgy, nervous Symphony No. 40 in G minor, this final symphony seems in no great hurry even when its music is moving quickly.

To be sure, the first movement bears a fast tempo marking, Allegro vivace; but its opening phrases are stately, their rhythms emphatic and their harmonic motion firmly anchored in the tonic key. Revelation stands on every ensuing page. One can only marvel at how this opening music takes on strikingly different characters when it recurs—for example, in the passage in the middle of the exposition where the opening “emphatic theme” is rendered by just first and second violins, playing piano in octaves beneath a chuckling filigree of scales from the flute and oboe (with a bit of support from the bassoons). Near the exposition’s end Mozart injects the last of numerous themes to populate this movement, a lighthearted, skipping tune (self-borrowed from his concert aria “Un bacio di mano”) that, for all its simplicity, reveals a brilliant touch of orchestration. The first two measures are for strings alone: first and second violins playing the melody in octaves, cellos accompanying with simple arpeggios, violas and double basses plucking pizzicatos on the opening beat of each measure.

As this continues, the two oboes enter to sustain a “pedal tone” on the note D (the dominant note in this passage), and then solo bassoon adds its voice to the violins’ line, which means that the melody is sounding in three different octaves at once. It’s the kind of detailing that makes music great. The development arrives via an unembellished harmonic step from C to E-flat. The orchestra at first carries over the same idea in its orchestration, but it quickly gives this up as the development launches into an imaginative harmonic exploration that includes impressive touches of counterpoint. Violins install mutes for the slow movement, yielding a veiled timbre. Analysts have sometimes described this movement as being rooted in the sarabande, a French courtly dance of the Baroque. Indeed it does display that dance’s essential attributes of 3/4 meter with a stress on the second beat, but it nonetheless seems a remote connection. Whether the association was in Mozart’s mind or not, he develops this sonata-form movement in a way that has very little to do with the Baroque. The first and second movements both included passages in which the bass line descended by chromatic steps.

In the Menuetto, a descending line with a related chromatic curve stakes its place at the top of the texture, and Mozart ends up developing it into a serpentine canon for woodwinds. The Trio section plays a joke on listeners by (as musicologist Peter Brown put it) “having the end of the phrase precede its beginning”; that is to say, the opening notes of each phrase sounds like a concluding cadence, while the notes that follow sound like they are revving up for that conclusion—whereas they themselves end up being the end. This is a joke that had recently been made by Mozart’s friend Haydn, in his Quartet in D major (Opus 50, no.6, nicknamed the Frog); it was published in October 1787, about ten months before Mozart wrote this symphony. The finale is a marvel even by Mozartian standards. If the last movement of the Haffner Symphony was redolent of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, this one may remind listeners of Le nozze di Figaro in its propulsive exuberance as well as the slyness with which it reveals its surprises.

Mozart begins by stating a four-note motif that composers had obsessed over for generations, a motif doled out in simple whole-notes, one per measure. In fact, he has already stated it, in the Trio of the Menuetto, where we are not likely to have paid much attention to it. Now it holds pride of place, at first on its own, then in counterpoint with itself. Other themes make their entrances one by one—not extended melodies so much as fleeting motifs, yet Mozart gives them all enough play to lend them familiarity. In the movement’s development section he juxtaposes several in counterpoint, and he works in a passage in which woodwinds intone descending chromatic lines, densely harmonized, recalling related contours in the first and second movements. But he withholds the most astonishing surprise until the coda: a breathtaking display of quintuple invertible counterpoint—five melodies sounding against one another, worked out so any of them can fall at any pitch level within the orchestral texture. It all passes quickly, leaving a listener amazed but bereft of the possibility of pondering what is happening while it is going on.

In her monograph on this symphony, Elaine Sisman wrote: “The mass of simultaneously writhing fragments, at all rhythmic levels and in all instruments, with the relentless background of the four whole-notes, cannot be taken in. It reveals vistas of contrapuntal infinity. The coda thus creates a cognitive exhaustion born of sheer magnitude. It makes vivid the mathematical sublime.” That climax may be viewed as looking both backward, to the sort of contrapuntal virtuosity we associate with Bach and Handel, and forward, to the dramatic power of fugue as demonstrated in many of the greatest compositions of Beethoven. Symphony No. 41 is universally known among English-speaking music lovers as the Jupiter Symphony. As with so many musical nicknames, this one did not originate with the composer.

We have no reason to doubt the account provided by the English composer and publisher Vincent Novello, who (along with his wife) visited Mozart’s widow and their son Franz Xaver in 1829 and reported: “Mozart’s son said he considered the Finale to his father’s Sinfonia in C—which Salomon christened the Jupiter—to be the highest triumph of Instrumental Composition, and I agree with him.” This would have been the German violinist Johann Peter Salomon, remembered especially for having established himself as an impresario in London and arranging Franz Joseph Haydn’s two stints in Great Britain in the 1790s. It rings true: the earliest concert programs to use the nickname were Scottish and English, and the first printed edition to slap the name on the title page was a piano transcription of the symphony published in London in 1823. Although we don’t know just when it was premiered, the Jupiter Symphony quickly earned a reputation as a work of exceptional qualities.

In 1798, a reviewer for Leipzig’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung referred to Mozart’s “formidable Symphony in C major, in which, as is well known, he came on a little too strong.” But soon commentators adopted tones of almost universal adulation. By the time Georg Nikolaus von Nissen published his groundbreaking Mozart biography, in 1828, the tone was firmly set. “His great Symphony in C with the closing fugue is truly the first of all symphonies,” declared Nissen. “In no work of this kind does the divine spark of genius shine more brightly and beautifully.” —James M. Keller More About the Music Recordings: Philippe Herreweghe conducting the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées (Phi) | Karl Böhm conducting the Berlin Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon) | Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic (Sony) | John Eliot Gardiner conducting the English Baroque Soloists (Soli Deo Gloria) Reading: Mozart: A Musical Biography, by Konrad Küster (Oxford University Press) | The Cambridge Companion to Mozart, edited by Simon P.

Keefe (Cambridge) | The Letters of Mozart and his Family, edited by Emily Anderson (Macmillan) | Mozart’s Symphonies: Context, Performance Practice, Reception, by Neal Zaslaw (Oxford) Mozart: The “Jupiter” Symphony, by Elaine Sisman (Cambridge) (February 2016) What is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's greatest work and why? - Quora Quora Updated Nov 26, 2010 I agree with Aditya Sengupta 's comment about greatest. Here are Mozart's most popular: Die Zauberflöte - Act 1, Scene. 3: Aria "Der Vogelflänger bin ich ja", Act 2, Scene. 14: Aria "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" (Queen of the Night) Don Giovanni - Act 1, Scene. 7 - "Là ci darem la mano", Act 1, Scene. 11: "Fin ch'han dal vino", Act 2, Scene. 16: "Deh!

vieni alla finestra" Le Nozze di Figaro - Overture, Act 2, Scene 12: Aria "Voi che sapete", Act 3, Scene 19: Aria "Dove sono i bei momenti", K. 492 Piano Concerto No. 21 in C - 2. Andante (Used in "The Spy Who Loved Me"), K. 467 Piano Sonata No. 11 "Alla Turca" in A - 3. Alla Turca (Allegretto), K. 331 Piano Sonata No. 16 "Sonata facile" in C major - 1. Allegro, K. 545 Requiem in D minor - 3. Sequentia: Lacrimosa, K. 626 Serenade in G "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" - 1. Allegro, K 525 Symphony No. 39 in E-flat - 2. Andante con moto, K. 543 Symphony No. 40 in G minor - 1. Molto allegro, K. 550 Symphony No.

41 "Jupiter" in C - 4. Molto allegro, K. 551 Violin Concerto No. 3 in G - 2. Adagio, K. 216 ---EDIT--- Below is my personal opinion. To answer Laszlo's question: "But I'm just curious - if you had to pick one piece (as the question implies), or perhaps 2 or 3, what would they be - and why?" Haha. Hmmm...it is always extremely hard to answer these kinds questions. At the moment, my personal favorite Mozart pieces are Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 and Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503. Both pieces do a great job of capturing "Mozart" and the Classical Period, whether stereotypically (Concerto 25, mvmt. 3! There's this one part a little over three and a half minutes in where the piano flirts with the oboe and flute; gets me every time), or technically. I've always imagined Mozart as a playful person around the piano, i.e.

a toned down version of the "Amadeus" Mozart. While many of Mozart's pieces can be characterized as childish--especially his earlier ones (the first examples that pop into mind are his early symphonies)--these pieces are great examples of a more mature Mozart while still hinting at his childish behavior. Both concertos are also fine examples of Mozart's genius developments. There is something about the fluidity of progression over the course of these two pieces I really enjoy. For example, I've always loved the way Mozart contrasts phrases of quarter notes / longer notes with phrases of scale-like sixteenth notes / sometimes eighth notes, and these pieces are no exception. Concerto No. 24 is also a fine example of Mozart's use of a minor key (it is one of the two piano concertos in minor, the other being Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, another of my favorites!) I think in 20 & 24 he uses on-beat quarter notes contrasted against half-a-beat-off quarter notes to create a darker tone. I think Mozart was not the first to come up with this rhythm, but this is a characteristic discovered during the Classical Era.

Other reasons are: I'm currently in the midst of a piano phase. I like to listen to entire CD's, as opposed to individual tracks, and Concertos 24 & 25 often come on the same disc. I hope this answers your question. :D Disclaimer: I've never had music theory education; I just enjoy listening to a lot of music, mostly classical. Updated Oct 21, 2011 Le nozze di Figaro is only mentioned twice?? Wow. Why? Well all I can do is scratch the surface: because it is 225 years old and it is completely utterly modern, real, feminist, smart, funny, spiritual, transcendent, portrays the best in humanity, the struggles of marriage, and for the completely clear way he describes the action in the music. You cannot even take the arias and the overture out of context because you miss the complete portrayal and coordinated brilliance that is threaded through the whole opera. Arias lose their profundity without connecting and contrasting them to the layers and layers that came before. At a basic level working with opera means coordinating much more: all kinds of voices, drama, and an orchestra to create something beyond solo instrument or symphonic painting.

Take the 20 minute Act 2 finale (putting aside that possibly the most exciting music in the entire opera comes before this in the trio "Susanna, or Via, Sortite" This finale is pure chess. Who is on top? Whose is winning whether they are telling the truth or not? Mozart (and Da Ponte) layer by adding all the characters, bringing all the plot points that have been established from Act 1, through act 2 to this point with elegance, beauty, subtext, and humor. Having a man in her boudoir ("pouting room") is enough cause for the Countess to be in deep shit. Cherubino, the boy page, had been put in there once the Count knocked on the door [1] The Countess, Susanna, and Figaro (another point to Mozartian brilliance: they are her servants, in one of the other themes of this drama which is equality, Susanna the clever maid is actually the star) had been plotting to trick the Count, to catch him in his infidelity. In this scene the jealous Count demands the key to the cabinet where Cherubino is hiding half clothed.

The Countess is actually guilty of having a man in her room, though not of infidelity, and she in turn is angry at the Count for doubting her honor, for his rage, and for the awful names he calls her. He is actually in the right technically, but is he ultimately? He is a womanizer [2] and can he really overreact to call her "worthless" "faithless" and "wicked"? So as in any marital fight across the ages, what is this really about? Who can turn it to their advantage? "Esci, Omai, Garzon Malnato" The next layer is that Susanna had actually switched with Cherubino in the cabinet! This is the very explanation that the Countess invented, lying to the Count to explain why he couldn't open the cabinet. "Aprite, Presto, Aprite" After Susanna reveals herself to them, the ladies proceed to use the hole that the Count dug himself by lambasting the Countess to their advantage, and the Countess gets to vent her rage about how he has always treated her by pretending to be in the right. Ultimately she is in the right, yes? Then Mozart and Da Ponte raise the stakes more!

Figaro is added putting the ladies on the edge as he doesn't know what's happened to their plan, the ladies try to steer him, and he jeopardizes their progress. Is anyone else left from the opera to add to this chaos? Of course, Marcellina's claim that she is legally entitled to marry Figaro This 20 minute finale may seem endless if you don't follow the text and subtext, but one can also revel merely in the transcendent play of musical texture. "Aprite, Presto, Aprite" is just a pure tone poem of hurrying, in the middle of this desperate situation. Mozart is not stuck in the music he was just writing, in his greater plot goals, this is completely different. And he does this even within pieces too; you're listening to the characters' arguments in the ensembles Mozart will just WHAM throw in transcendent music, then go right back to character and plot painting, nimbly switching back and forth. The atmosphere in the very final finale actually feels like a night garden, you can feel the creeping, the delicate darkness. Just so exciting! Finally, there is a value from Mozart's time that puts this opera over the top.

Yes, there is the brilliant craftsmanship, the wit, but there is also forgiveness, the hand of God. [1] The singer in the blue dress is actually a female mezzo soprano playing a boy, who is then in the opera dressed up as a girl. The irony is intentional and it's a gimmick that has been copied. Richard Strauss in one of his many inspirations from Figaro, does the same with Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. [2] Another layer of tragedy, can this really be the same Count and Rosina from Il Barbiere di Siviglia? Where he promised her "In the arms of your faithful husband at last you will enjoy liberty"? Why yes it is, and therein all the complexities of marriage. The audiences of the day knew the trio of plays that these operas come from. Disclaimer: Yes, this can be taken as professional advice. I professionally advise you to see both these operas (these are complete on YouTube) with both of these stellar casts.

Written May 2, 2011 I'm voting for his last symphony, #41, aka, "The Jupiter." But explaining why it's great would take a lot of technical terms that you might not be interested in. Suffice it to say that the ending has some of the most intricate writing anyone, in any century, has pulled off, and Mozart made it sound natural and effortless. You can literally walk away singing the tunes. If you want small-scale works, try Mozart's string quartets. Many composers did some of their best, most advanced writing for the string quartet---too bad those pieces haven't earned the same reputation as the blockbuster pieces. Written Dec 8, 2010 Two other works that haven't been mentioned: I've always considered his Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra (K 364) to be sublime. The melodies are brilliant, the harmonic twists and turns are elegant, and the slow movement has a grace and sense of meditative space not found in many other pieces of music by anyone.

The Quintet for two violins, two violas and cello (K 516) is a more intimate working out of some of the ideas of his Symphony No 40 in G minor (K 550) - mentioned above (it's in the same key and has some similarities in terms of melodies and key relationships). The fact is, there is so much music that Mozart wrote that is so damned good that these works only stick out as being particularly extraordinary; even at his most mundane, workaday music, Mozart's wit, inventiveness and taste is almost never far below the surface. Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 &quot;Jupiter&quot; Tweet There has been a lot of speculation as to precisely what went wrong in Mozart's life between 1785, the apex of his "golden years," and the summer of 1788, when the last three symphonies were written. By 1788, the concert series where Mozart had presented his great piano concertos had been discontinued. For a variety of reasons, not all completely understood, Mozart had lost the audience support he had previously enjoyed.

In 1786-87, he had an immense success in Prague with his operas The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni (the latter was written specifically for that city), but back home in Vienna, things were going downhill financially. Mozart's appointment to the relatively minor position of "Kammer-Kompositeur" at the imperial court did little to improve matters. Mozart's family life was also extremely difficult: four of his children died in infancy, three of them between 1786 and 1788. (This left Mozart and his wife Constanze with only one surviving child, Karl Thomas, born in 1784; a second son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang, who would become a composer, was born in 1791, the last year of Mozart's life.) Among the further reasons that may have contributed to the deterioration of Mozart's situation, researchers have cited the composer's gambling habit, household mismanagement by Constanze, and a general tendency of the Mozarts to live beyond their means.

What is certain is that during the summer of 1788 Mozart started writing heart-rending letters to his friend and fellow Freemason, Michael Puchberg, imploring him for rather large sums of money. In one of these, he was asking Puchberg for "a hundred gulden until next week, when my concerts in the Casino are to begin." Since the letter was written at the time Mozart was working on what would prove to be his last three symphonies, there is reason to believe that they intended them for concerts "in the Casino." We don't know exactly where "the Casino" was, but Mozart had previously played some of his piano concertos there. The performances of Symphonies No. 39-41 may or may not have taken place in the fall of 1788. Because there are no known records of performances, it used to be believed that these symphonies were never heard in concert during the composer's lifetime. Recently, experts have become more careful and we no longer rule out a contemporary performance on the basis of missing evidence.

There were in fact several opportunities for Mozart to present these symphonies both in Vienna and in Germany, where he journeyed in 1789 and again in 1790. We may not know when or where the first performance took place, but one thing is certain: by the early 1800s the C-major symphony, the last of the three, was universally recognized as one of the greatest ever composed. It came to be known as the "Jupiter," a nickname probably invented by Johann Peter Salomon, the famous London impresario. As musicologist Elaine Sisman writes in a book devoted to the "Jupiter" (Cambridge Musical Handbooks, 1993), most responses ranged "from admiring to adulatory, a gamut from A to A." (For Mozart, who died in 1791, the praises unfortunately came too late.) The most widely admired aspect of the work (besides its magnificent proportions and general mood of majestic serenity) was, and still is, the fugal finale-in Germany, the symphony is known under the nickname "mit der Schlussfuge" (with the final fugue).

The fact that the finale should be the crown of the entire work is in itself unusual since most earlier symphonies placed the greatest emphasis on the opening movement. But the symphony is revolutionary in more ways than we often realize: each of the four movements significantly transcend the traditional movement types from which they originated. In his seminal book on Mozart's Symphonies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), Neal Zaslaw invokes the world of opera for an explanation of the "Jupiter" Symphony's first movement. In Zaslaw's interpretation, the relationship between the opening fanfares and the closing theme is like that between a serious operatic character and a figure from comic opera. Throughout the movement, Mozart moves between "high-brow" and popular musical styles with astonishing ease and without the slightest incongruity. Shortly after a great dramatic outburst (with a suspenseful general rest and an unexpected foray into the minor mode), we hear a beguilingly simple folk-like closing theme. Mozart borrowed this theme from an aria for bass he had written just a few months earlier, in May 1788.

The words were possibly by Lorenzo Da Ponte, with whom Mozart collaborated on three of his greatest operas. The aria, "Un bacio di mano" ("A Hand-kiss"), K. 541, was intended as an extra number for a comic opera by Pasquale Anfossi (1727-1797). The text of the aria passage Mozart used in the "Jupiter" Symphony runs as follows: "Voi siete un po' tondo, mio caro Pompeo, le usanze del mondo andate a studiar" ("You are a bit naïve, my dear Pompeo, go study the ways of the world"). In the development section, this theme becomes the starting point for a whole series of transformations, as if the simple melody were indeed "studying the ways of the world." The second-movement "Andante cantabile" opens with muted strings playing a simple musical question-and-answer phrase. We will hear the first of these phrases (the question part) again, but not the second part, which will become completely submerged under a cascade of thirty-second notes.

In fact, after the simple opening, Mozart soon piles up harmonic and rhythmic complexities in what is one of his most personal and profound musical statements. Then the complexities disappear, and the Andante ends as simply and reassuringly as it began. The minuet starts with another question-and-answer; however, this time the structure remains simple throughout. Mozart plays a fascinating game in the trio, which begins with a closing gesture, in a move that has been described as "putting the cart before the horse." Within only a few measures, this closing gesture undergoes an astonishing number of changes as it is inverted, transposed, and harmonized in different ways. For a moment, it is even made to anticipate the four-note motif of the finale to follow. It then returns in its original form, leading into the recapitulation of the minuet. The celebrated four-note motif of the finale was a commonplace in 18th-century contrapuntal studies, probably derived from the Gregorian hymn "Lucis creator" ("The Creator of Light"). It may be found in several of Mozart's earlier works, from as early as his Symphony No.

1 written at the age of eight, or the "Credo" movement of his Missa brevis in F major (K. 192), written ten years later. In the "Jupiter" Symphony, Mozart used this motif to create a movement whose perfection may be part of the reason why Mozart did not write another symphony in the remaining three years of his life. The four-note motif is first presented in a simple form by the first violins, accompanied only by the seconds. A fugal elaboration soon begins, and the motif is joined by several countersubjects. At one point, no fewer than five different motifs are heard simultaneously. To make matters even more complicated, Mozart embedded his fugue within a sonata structure. This means that there are several fugal sections, arranged in an order that follows the usual exposition-development-recapitulation scheme of sonata form. In other words, two worlds meet in this magnificent finale: the strict contrapuntal technique inherited from the Baroque and the freer, "galant" idiom of the Classical era. The seamless synthesis of those two worlds was an achievement unmatched even by Mozart.

Music has never been closer to what 18th-century philosophers called the "sublime," a term defining an experience at once powerful, uplifting, and transcendent. It is, no doubt, this sublime quality that invited the association with Jupiter, the chief of the gods in Roman mythology. These are factually the 10 best symphonies of all time - Classic FM Classic FM These are factually the 10 best symphonies of all time By Daniel Ross, 18th July 2014, 17:34 We think these are the greatest symphonies of all time - the biggest, most emotional, most impressive and plain-old flabbergasting works ever written. From Mozart to Dvořák and Beethoven with some left-field stunners along the way, let the epicness commence… Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique Is it even a symphony? Isn't it a symphonic fantasy or a tone poem? Does its five-movement structure actually take it a step away from the idiom? It doesn't matter.

What matters is that Berlioz ingested a boatload of opium and wrote one of the most insane pieces of music to come out of the romantic period, while managing to make it a total hit and an artistically sound statement. Mahler - Symphony No. 2 ('Resurrection') "Hmm, what subject to tackle for my second symphony…? Nothing too ambitious, I'm still establishing myself. We'll go for something low-key. Like… oh, I don't know, the entire life cycle of the human condition, beginning with the funeral and ending with a triumphant, supernatural return to life, quoting Jewish folk music and ending with church bells. With at least 10 French horns. That'll probably do it." Brahms - Symphony No. 4 When the dust had settled from Brahms' first symphony (he was heavily touted in his day as the successor to Beethoven's top-dog status in symphony land), he set about creating one of the most consistent sets of symphonies in history. The fourth and final, composed up a mountain in 1884, has to be the best one though.

It silenced critics who thought Brahms was too musically conservative, it proved to be one of his most emotionally daring works and it sealed his reputation as one of the great masters of the symphony. Mozart - Symphony No. 41 Mozart's final symphony was also his best. It's no coincidence that it's subtitled 'Jupiter', either: it's a beast. Mozart threw absolutely everything at this epic, his longest symphony. Marvel at the five-theme fugal ending! Gasp at the quotations of plainchant motifs! Recoil in wonder at the majesty of it all! Gorecki - Symphony No. 3 ('Symphony of Sorrowful Songs') A recording phenomenon in the 1990s, Gorecki's third is not only popular now: it's destined to be a future classic. The concept is innovative and watertight - a soprano sings three texts inspired by themes of parents and missing children over a sparse and simple orchestral backing - but it's the second movement that's proved the real winner.

The text, taken from a message scrawled on the wall of a Gestapo cell in World War II, dovetails so perfectly with Gorecki's bare-bones accompaniment that it's impossible to imagine a future without it. Shostakovich - Symphony No. 5 Shostakovich wrote 15 symphonies in total, and he's unique in that almost all of them made an actual cultural impact. But of them all, the fifth has to be considered the greatest: sarcastic and funereal, inflammatory yet somehow managing to toe the party line (the final movement can be seen as both a parody of Stalinist excess AND an example of it: how do you even do that?), this was the symphony that made the young Shostakovich a name, for better or worse. Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 ('Choral') Oh calm down, as if we couldn't put this one on the list. The ingredients are all killer: a noble theme, a maniac composer, the crushing depression of going deaf, red wine, brotherhood, massive choirs, a closing melody that a child could sing… what else could you ever want? Dvořák - Symphony No.

9 ('From The New World') Another classic 9th, this time with a still-fresh focus on the future that, weirdly, came from the past. Dvořák became obsessed with the native music of North America and claimed it was the key to keeping classical music moving forward and, even though it's an arguable point at best, the ninth symphony makes you believe he was really onto something. It's no dry rehash of Native American melodies, though: it's by turns one of the most poignant, energetic, elegiac and spiritual symphonies ever composed. Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 6 ('Pathetique') This could be the saddest symphony ever written. Even if it wasn't supposedly written as a desperate musical example of Tchaikovsky's confusing and frowned-upon feelings towards his own nephew (issues: he had them), this is undoubtedly one of the most emotionally-charged works to come out of the classical music canon. Conjuring the most incredible sense of yearning, nostalgia and regret throughout these four movements must've been an incredible undertaking for the composer - he died just nine days after its first performance. Rachmaninov - Symphony No.

2 Indulgent, yes, but can you blame him? Rachmaninov's hour-long posterior-numbing second symphony has stealthily become a hugely popular concert favourite. It's all the more remarkable that it's survived because the composer himself thought the work was pretty abject. The reviews for his first symphony had been terrible and he was nervous about how the follow-up would be received. He needn't have worried, of course. It became an award-winner, and the slow movement contains perhaps the finest command of melody and orchestration in Rachmaninov's entire output. Is your favourite not on the list? Let us know in the comments below... Mozart's Greatest Symphonies - Jupiter, Paris, No. 40... Mozart's Greatest Symphonies - Jupiter, Paris, No. 40... The most popular, beautiful, and ingenious Mozart symphonies explored... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart penned 41 numbered symphonies during his lifetime (and about 25 more were discovered later). He wrote the first one when he was just 8 years old! In fact, before he turned 20 he had written a few dozen.

Each was traditional in style but with brilliant originality and forward-looking innovations. And he only grew from there. Here are 6 of the greatest Mozart symphonies... Symphony no. 25, "Little G minor" (K183) This famous opening to the film Amadeus was written in October 1773. Mozart was in his mid-teens and still living in Salzburg at the time. Apparently the ink dried just two days after he finished his Symphony 24, but there's not much evidence for this. The "Little G minor" symphony was inspired by Haydn's Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) style of music. It's one the first ambitious, dramatic Mozart symphonies. Musically it's in strict classical form, peppered with lively Mozartian flourishes. The symphony is a balance between a melancholy mood and more light-hearted feelings. Symphony no. 31, "Paris" (K297) The year was 1778. Mozart was in Paris, trying to break into musical society and get a well-payed placement. It was first the first trip he had made without his father Leopold.

But the places he visited weren't impressed by his skills now, even though they'd been whipped into a wild frenzy by Mozart when he was a 6 year old performing prodigy. His entire Paris trip was catastrophic, personally and professionally. Aside from his mother dying during his stay there (she had accompanied him), French musicians and listeners were snobby and rude to Mozart. He deeply resented them for the rest of his life. Worse still, his job search was futile. Nobody wanted to hire him! But a fantastic opportunity presented itself at one point. Mozart was asked to write a symphony to open Paris's most famous concert series, with a fantastically large orchestra at his disposal. Perfect - a chance to make a huge splash, and get himself noticed by Paris's elite! He finished the piece, his 31st symphony, in June 1778. The premiere was at a private concert at an ambassador's house, and the public premiere followed a few days later. Mozart had tried hard to fit his symphony into the mold of French tastes. The audiences in Paris at that time loved raw excitement and flashy colors in their music.

Mozart delivered in spades, using his large orchestra to dazzle and delight. The audience were very pleased with the symphony, even applauding in the middle of it at certain points! The "Paris" symphony is indeed very entertaining. Full of energy and light, each movement is more engaging and beautiful than the last... Symphony no. 35, "Haffner" (K385) This symphony is named after the prominent Haffner family of Salzburg, with whom the Mozarts were old friends. Originally they commissioned Mozart to write a small serenade for a wedding. Later, when one of their members was elevated to the nobility, they thought they'd get some fitting music for the occasion. They asked Wolfgang Amadeus to write a nice symphony. Mozart thought he'd be clever, and converted the original serenade into symphonic format. He took out a march from the introduction, and left only one minuet in the middle (before there were two). This created a symphony which had echoes of a previous happy Haffner event - what a great treat for the family! The Haffner symphony was premiered in March 1783 in Vienna.

Mozart began the concert by playing the first three movements of the new symphony, then a fairly large amount of other material (piano concertos, arias, fugues, rondos, etc etc...) before finishing up with the last movement of the symphony. It was a huge success nonetheless. All the boxes in the theater were filled, and even the Emperor was there, clapping his heart out with enthusiasm. The music is celebratory, but also with a ceremonial edge. The first movement is full of energy and power, leading into a calmer second movement. The third movement is a charming dance, whilst the Finale (to be played "as fast as possible" according to Mozart) is a stunning musical fireworks display. It's now considered one of the greatest Mozart symphonies - even the composer himself was proud of his accomplishment. Final 3 The last three Mozart symphonies (numbers 39, 40, and 41) are extremely interesting. The composer dashed them out in a composing frenzy lasting about 6 to 9 weeks, during the summer of 1778. He marked them all as complete on the 25th of July that year.

Looking back though, Mozart's life at the time didn't seem to offer suitable circumstances for composing such masterworks. He was falling into a terrible spiral of poverty, Vienna was slowly forgetting about him, and his popularity was plummeting. His wife was ill and expecting another child. The composer eventually had to beg a friend for a loan to survive. He was plagued by "black thoughts" which he drove away with a supreme effort of will. He was also moving apartment, teaching music, and giving concerts at the same time. How did he manage to write 3 symphonies in the middle of all this? And why? Let's ponder the last question for a moment. There's no evidence to say that any of the three symphonies were performed while Mozart was alive. Only one might have been performed (Mozart adapted it to fit an orchestra at the time, but they never played it). One possible explanation is that Mozart wrote them for a concert series he was planning at a new casino. This event never happened though, likely because no one was interested enough (heathen!). Or maybe Mozart was such a genius that he felt a powerful urge to create, for creation's sake.

The last three symphonies are so inventive and full of innovative mastery of form and melody that they probably would have been lost on audiences at the time. It's only with thorough musical analysis and copies of the manuscript that we can see just how strikingly novel the works were. They are, in fact, considered the greatest symphonies of that era, masterpieces still firmly embedded the concert repertory. They are exceptional, summing up everything about symphonic form that had gone before, then pointing the road to the future... Symphony no. 39 (K543) This symphony is mostly calm and stately, the most modest of the grand trilogy. The orchestra Mozart requires for is relatively small, and becomes smaller again in the second movement. At times it reminds me of a chamber music piece. The opening is grand and powerful, although it's the third movement which stands out here, enchanting and rollicking. The Finale explodes with a continuous re-treatment of the same theme - it's as if Mozart is saying "look what I can do!". Click to explore this master composer's Coronation Mass, another astonishing work... Symphony no.

40 (K550) One of only two Mozart symphonies in a minor key, the symphony no 40 ventures again into Sturm und Drang territory. It's full of darkness and weight - maybe a reflection of Mozart's inner depression at the time of writing (but then why are the other two symphonies in the trilogy bursting with positivity?). The incredible feat Mozart achieves with this symphony was not only a seemingly perfect balance and structure, using brilliant economy, but looking over 100 years into the future and glimpsing the disturbing, raw direction music could take. Symphony no. 41, "Jupiter" (K551) Mozart's very last symphony, nicknamed "Jupiter" by a 19th century publisher, deserves its title. The composer displays such a profound mastery of music that the work brings to mind celestial majesty, god-like talent originating from some distant world. The Jupiter symphony's tone is energetically positive. The Finale features a spectacular quintuple counterpoint passage - five melodies playing at once, each blending and soaring in perfect equilibrium with the others.

Mozart hoarded his infinite creative energies and unleashed them into this last symphony, creating a revolutionary, world-stoppingly high level of intellectual art in the guise of a flowery musical diversion. Recommended Recordings If you're interested in a recording of the Mozart symphonies, I recommend the box set conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. It's a great modern digital set of the works, beautifully performed and at a bargain price. Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 "Jupiter" Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 "Jupiter" About the Work Composer: W.A. Mozart Program note originally written for the following performance: National Symphony Orchestra: Christoph Eschenbach, conductor: Midori, violin, plays Schumann's Violin Concerto / Symphonies by Mendelssohn & Mozart © Peter Laki There has been a lot of speculation as to precisely what went wrong in Mozart's life between 1785, the apex of his "golden years," and the summer of 1788, when the last three symphonies were written.

By 1788, the concert series where Mozart had presented his great piano concertos had been discontinued. For a variety of reasons, not all completely understood, Mozart had lost the audience support he had previously enjoyed. In 1786-87, he had an immense success in Prague with his operas The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni (the latter was written specifically for that city), but back home in Vienna, things were going downhill financially. Mozart's appointment to the relatively minor position of "Kammer-Kompositeur" at the imperial court did little to improve matters. Mozart's family life was also extremely difficult: four of his children died in infancy, three of them between 1786 and 1788.

(This left Mozart and his wife Constanze with only one surviving child, Karl Thomas, born in 1784; a second son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang, who would become a composer, was born in 1791, the last year of Mozart's life.) Among the further reasons that may have contributed to the deterioration of Mozart's situation, researchers have cited the composer's gambling habit, household mismanagement by Constanze, and a general tendency of the Mozarts to live beyond their means. What is certain is that during the summer of 1788 Mozart started writing heart-rending letters to his friend and fellow Freemason, Michael Puchberg, imploring him for rather large sums of money. In one of these, he was asking Puchberg for "a hundred gulden until next week, when my concerts in the Casino are to begin." Since the letter was written at the time Mozart was working on what would prove to be his last three symphonies, there is reason to believe that they intended them for concerts "in the Casino." We don't know exactly where "the Casino" was, but Mozart had previously played some of his piano concertos there. The performances of Symphonies No.

39-41 may or may not have taken place in the fall of 1788. Because there are no known records of performances, it used to be believed that these symphonies were never heard in concert during the composer's lifetime. Recently, experts have become more careful and we no longer rule out a contemporary performance on the basis of missing evidence. There were in fact several opportunities for Mozart to present these symphonies both in Vienna and in Germany, where he journeyed in 1789 and again in 1790. We may not know when or where the first performance took place, but one thing is certain: by the early 1800s the C-major symphony, the last of the three, was universally recognized as one of the greatest ever composed. It came to be known as the "Jupiter," a nickname probably invented by Johann Peter Salomon, the famous London impresario.

As musicologist Elaine Sisman writes in a book devoted to the "Jupiter" (Cambridge Musical Handbooks, 1993), most responses ranged "from admiring to adulatory, a gamut from A to A." (For Mozart, who died in 1791, the praises unfortunately came too late.) The most widely admired aspect of the work (besides its magnificent proportions and general mood of majestic serenity) was, and still is, the fugal finale-in Germany, the symphony is known under the nickname "mit der Schlussfuge" (with the final fugue). The fact that the finale should be the crown of the entire work is in itself unusual since most earlier symphonies placed the greatest emphasis on the opening movement. But the symphony is revolutionary in more ways than we often realize: each of the four movements significantly transcend the traditional movement types from which they originated. In his seminal book on Mozart's Symphonies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), Neal Zaslaw invokes the world of opera for an explanation of the "Jupiter" Symphony's first movement.

In Zaslaw's interpretation, the relationship between the opening fanfares and the closing theme is like that between a serious operatic character and a figure from comic opera. Throughout the movement, Mozart moves between "high-brow" and popular musical styles with astonishing ease and without the slightest incongruity. Shortly after a great dramatic outburst (with a suspenseful general rest and an unexpected foray into the minor mode), we hear a beguilingly simple folk-like closing theme. Mozart borrowed this theme from an aria for bass he had written just a few months earlier, in May 1788. The words were possibly by Lorenzo Da Ponte, with whom Mozart collaborated on three of his greatest operas. The aria, "Un bacio di mano" ("A Hand-kiss"), K. 541, was intended as an extra number for a comic opera by Pasquale Anfossi (1727-1797).

The text of the aria passage Mozart used in the "Jupiter" Symphony runs as follows: "Voi siete un po' tondo, mio caro Pompeo, le usanze del mondo andate a studiar" ("You are a bit naïve, my dear Pompeo, go study the ways of the world"). In the development section, this theme becomes the starting point for a whole series of transformations, as if the simple melody were indeed "studying the ways of the world." The second-movement "Andante cantabile" opens with muted strings playing a simple musical question-and-answer phrase. We will hear the first of these phrases (the question part) again, but not the second part, which will become completely submerged under a cascade of thirty-second notes. In fact, after the simple opening, Mozart soon piles up harmonic and rhythmic complexities in what is one of his most personal and profound musical statements. Then the complexities disappear, and the Andante ends as simply and reassuringly as it began. The minuet starts with another question-and-answer; however, this time the structure remains simple throughout.

Mozart plays a fascinating game in the trio, which begins with a closing gesture, in a move that has been described as "putting the cart before the horse." Within only a few measures, this closing gesture undergoes an astonishing number of changes as it is inverted, transposed, and harmonized in different ways. For a moment, it is even made to anticipate the four-note motif of the finale to follow. It then returns in its original form, leading into the recapitulation of the minuet. The celebrated four-note motif of the finale was a commonplace in 18th-century contrapuntal studies, probably derived from the Gregorian hymn "Lucis creator" ("The Creator of Light"). It may be found in several of Mozart's earlier works, from as early as his Symphony No. 1 written at the age of eight, or the "Credo" movement of his Missa brevis in F major (K. 192), written ten years later. In the "Jupiter" Symphony, Mozart used this motif to create a movement whose perfection may be part of the reason why Mozart did not write another symphony in the remaining three years of his life.

The four-note motif is first presented in a simple form by the first violins, accompanied only by the seconds. A fugal elaboration soon begins, and the motif is joined by several countersubjects. At one point, no fewer than five different motifs are heard simultaneously. To make matters even more complicated, Mozart embedded his fugue within a sonata structure. This means that there are several fugal sections, arranged in an order that follows the usual exposition-development-recapitulation scheme of sonata form. In other words, two worlds meet in this magnificent finale: the strict contrapuntal technique inherited from the Baroque and the freer, "galant" idiom of the Classical era. The seamless synthesis of those two worlds was an achievement unmatched even by Mozart. Music has never been closer to what 18th-century philosophers called the "sublime," a term defining an experience at once powerful, uplifting, and transcendent. It is, no doubt, this sublime quality that invited the association with Jupiter, the chief of the gods in Roman mythology. Related Artists/Companies Orchestra Performs Legendary Works by Haydn and Mozart > United States Marine Band > News Download Hi-Res Photo Download Share Photo Details Details Alexandria, Va.

-- The Marine Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Assistant Director Maj. Michelle A. Rakers, will perform two legendary works by composers Franz Josef Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at 2 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 7, at Northern Virginia Community College’s Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria. The concert is free and no tickets are required. Free parking is available in the adjacent garage. The concert, aptly titled “What’s In a Nickname?,” will highlight Haydn’s Symphony No. 96 and Mozart’s Symphony No. 41. Composed within a few years of one another, Haydn’s The Miracle and Mozart’s Jupiter captured the ears, hearts, and minds of their audiences and took on lives of their own. These composers and their symphonies are just as relevant today as they were in the 1780s. Haydn did not give his symphony the nickname The Miracle, but rather it earned it in a rather strange and random way.

Musicologist Edward Downes recounted the story of how the nickname came to be: When Haydn came to take his place at the keyboard during one of his London concerts, the audience, curious to observe the great man at close quarters, crowded forward towards the orchestra, leaving empty a large number of seats in the middle of the auditorium. While the seats were still empty, a huge chandelier plunged down and smashed, terrifying the whole audience. When those whose lives had perhaps been saved by the accident of their curiosity realized what had happened, the cry went up “Miracle! Miracle!” The odd thing about this incident is that it did not happen at the performance of Symphony No. 96, but in 1794, at the première of Haydn’s Symphony No. 102, but the nickname “Miracle” has stuck to No. 96. Mozart’s symphony earned its nickname in a much different way, albeit still somewhat tied to Haydn and London. In what one might consider a publicity scheme, Johann Peter Salomon, the man responsible for Haydn’s two visits to London, dubbed Mozart’s work with the title of Jupiter, forever linking the grand symphony with one of the most powerful gods of ancient Rome.

The nickname stuck and Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 is considered by many to be the composer’s greatest symphonic achievement and an icon of the Classical symphonic genre. The concert will also include Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s Flute Concerto, featuring soloist Gunnery Sgt. Elisabeth Plunk. Nielsen composed the concerto for the Copenhagen Wind Quintet and dedicated the piece as a musical portrait of the mercurial personality of Holger Gilbert-Jespersen, the quintet’s flutist. “This piece was the first flute concerto I heard live with an orchestra,” Plunk said. “My mother took me to hear Gary Shocker perform it with the Quad City Symphony in Davenport, Iowa, when I was 13 and the performance was a huge inspiration to me. I feel very honored to perform it.”

Question: What is the nickname of his Symphony No.41 – considered to be his greatest?
Answer: The Jupiter