Program Notes: Mozart Jupiter Symphony

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART 
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 
BORN: January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria 
DIED: December 5, 1791, in Vienna, Austria 
WORK COMPOSED: July 1788 
WORLD PREMIERE:  April 16, 1791, in Vienna (first precisely dated performance) 

What to Listen For: 

• The haunting opening is like nothing Mozart ever wrote, not so much a traditional introduction as a plunge into darkness. Note that this isn’t the main theme, but the accompaniment. 

• The fourth movement begins with a launch skyward, a technique known at the time, appropriately, as the Mannheim rocket. 

What can be said of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that hasn’t been said a thousand times over? So much has been written about this precocious wonder of music — the effortless style of many of his 626 compositions; the perfection of his operas, late symphonies and piano concertos; and the ominous torso of the Requiem — that anything more seems redundant. 

We can all agree, however, that Mozart was an innate musician who created art with uncanny ease and profound humanity. His vulnerability also reminds us that he was not a musical god, but a mortal. 

But what mortal could have conceived of the three flawless works that close his chapter as a symphonist? Completed in just six weeks in the summer of 1788, the symphonies 39, 40 and 41 together form Mozart’s crowning orchestral achievement, works of intense emotional expression and contrapuntal brilliance. 

They are not based on a program or literary idea, much less the celebration of some important occasion. Even more surprising, no evidence exists of a commission, which Mozart so desperately relied on all his life. Experts believe he wrote these works simply to please himself, hardly imagining they would symbolize, in the words of George Bernard Shaw, "the last word of the 18th century." 

If the Symphony No. 40 sounds tame by today's standards, it wasn't to those who first heard it, notes Alfred Einstein in his seminal biography, Mozart: His Character, His Work. The thematic development of this masterpiece ascends into “the abyss of the soul, in modulations so bold that to Mozart's contemporaries they must have seemed to lose their way entirely, and so distant that only Mozart himself could find the path back from them into the light of day." 

This tragic-sounding music opens with restless energy, an aching theme in G-minor that transforms itself throughout the entire work — only one of two symphonies Mozart wrote in a minor key. He used G-minor sparingly, reserved for such deeply felt “fate’’ works as the Symphony No. 25, Piano Quartet K. 478, and String Quintet K. 516. 

In the Symphony No. 40, Mozart removed trumpets and timpani, as their triumphant gestures had no place in such a brooding composition. The tension of the opening Molto Allegro, begun in quiet agitation by the violas, soon gives way to a soft melancholy theme in B-flat, and the journey continues with remarkable freedom and daring, always on edge but never overbearing. A true classicist, Mozart knew when enough was enough. 

The mood gives way to the balm of an andante in E-flat major, which may have inspired Beethoven in writing the slow movement of his Fourth Symphony. A terse minuet follows — hardly the courtly dance expected from this era, percolating with odd accents and slight dissonances. Then comes a furious allegro launched by a quick ascending passage known as the Mannheim rocket. Mozart repeats the subsidiary theme no less than eight times in contrasting keys throughout this dramatic movement before the struggle concludes, defiant and unsmiling. 

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN  
Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major 
BORN: 1732, in Rohrau, Austria 
DIED: 1809, in Vienna, Austria 
WORK COMPOSED: 1796  
WORLD PREMIERE: 1796, in Vienna 

What to Listen For: 

• Haydn marked solo parts as squillante, emphasizing a clear ringing tone. 

• The short Andante mimics a barcarolle, the song of the Venetian boatsman. 

If you happened to be in Vienna in the late 1700s and ran into Franz Joseph Haydn on the street, you wouldn’t guess he was a key figure in the development of the classical style and father of both the string quartet and symphony. Humble and unassuming, he composed to make a decent living before securing a spot as court composer for the palace of Esterhazy, where he worked in relative isolation. But the job forced Haydn to become, in his own words, “original.’’ 

Haydn's music exemplifies the glories of the classical period, and continues to sound fresh because of its inherent order, clarity and architectural symmetry. A listener can spend years exploring the three volumes of the Hoboken catalogue, including 160 trios, 104 symphonies, nearly 70 string quartets, 50 keyboard sonatas, 24 operas, 20 concertos, a dozen masses, and numerous oratorios and vocal works.  

In 1796, Haydn sat down to write a concerto for the trumpet, which at the time was a coiled metal tube eight feet long without valves, played more or less like a primitive bugle. But new designs and the addition of keys led to a full chromatic instrument with a broader range of notes, and the court trumpeter Anton Weidlinger encouraged Haydn to pen something elegant and virtuosic.  

The opening Allegro is in traditional sonata form and skillfully blends soloist and orchestra, but not without a razzle-dazzle cadenza. Tasteful restraint marks the cantabile-style slow movement in A-flat major, proving a trumpet can mimic an opera aria. This leads directly to the famed melody of the finale, adorned with high passages before soloist and orchestra bring the concerto to a rousing close. Although more than 225 years old and deceptively simple, the work holds its ground as the most popular concerto ever written for the instrument. 

BENT SØRENSEN  
Trumpet Concerto 
BORN: July 18, 1958, Borup, Denmark 
WORK COMPOSED: 2013 
WORLD PREMIERE: December 13, 2013, in Sweden, with soloist Tine Thing Helseth joining the Goteborgs Symfoniker and conductor Mario Venzago Location Vara Konserthus, Vara, Sweden

What to Listen For: 

• At the end of the first movement, the soloist inserts a mute into the horn to create a jazzy wah-wah effect.  

At the end of the first movement, the soloist inserts a mute into the horn to create a jazzy wah-wah effect.  

The music of Bent Sørensen “reminds me of something I’ve never heard,’’ the Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim said, aptly describing the large body of Sørensen’s work, which blends past and future mystically, like an unmoored dream. 

The Danish composer’s music seems to float and percolate, sometimes hovering in near silence. One of his scores requires the orchestra to lay down its instruments and hum together. 

“Sørensen is a modernist who adores tonal intervals and allows himself to be pulled between the magnetic poles of warm, Romantic tonality and rich, Schoenbergian atonality,” notes Wise Music Classical’s website. “Despite its extreme emotional fragility, Sørensen’s music is crammed with as much beauty as is tastefully possible.” 

Sørensen has always loved the piercing voice of the trumpet, and after exploring the early concertos of Haydn and Hummel, decided to make his own mark. So, in 2013 he wrote this concerto, specifically for the virtuoso Tine Thing Helseth and dedicated to his two daughters. Here is Sørensen’s own description of the work: 

“The first movement is playful — the muted trumpet crawling in and out of the orchestra’s running melodies and layering noise textures. By the end of the movement, the trumpet embarks on a cadenza-like passage but the orchestra never leaves it alone and in the end engulfs it completely. 
 
“The second movement inhabits a barcarole-like universe (my eternal dream about Venice); but the sound of ticking clocks is brought to the fore and the dreamy mode leads unto the final movement: a staggering finale in which the trumpet, at last, escapes. However, by this time, the concerto is in fact over.’’ 
 

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART 
Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551, “Jupiter” 
WORK COMPOSED: July 1788 
WORLD PREMIERE: undocumented 

What to Listen For: 

• Take note of the woodwinds, as their forward exposure and musical demands create an endurance test for the players. 

• The finale is a giant fugato that weaves five themes into a tapestry of counterpoint reminiscent of a Bach chorale.  

Mozart’s summa symphonic statement, the famed “Jupiter,” acts as a foil to the dark murmur of the G-minor symphony that opens this program. The longest of his symphonies, “Jupiter” is his most mature canvas, evident in the logical and imaginative relationship of themes and dispersal of weight within each movement. It represents the embodiment of Mozart’s expressive power, a seamless blend of ideas that secure the larger musical argument. 

Cast in the bright key of C-major, the work unfolds with an air of majesty, hence the sobriquet. However, the name “Jupiter” came not from Mozart but a London-based impresario named Johann Peter Salomon, who felt the music represented Olympian grandeur, and the association with the Roman god of the sky and thunder stuck. 

The music begins with three tutti chords on which Mozart builds a complex allegro full of sparkle, storm and stress. It has been said that this movement is more like a play, with  melodies and rhythms representing actors on stage. A richly embroidered second movement — a Baroque sarabande dance — expands through an inventive use of muted strings, and the following menuetto is a study in delicacy that prepares us for the miracle about to come. 

The finale is one of the most exciting moments in any Mozart symphony, a series of fugal fragments that gains velocity before Mozart strips away the contrapuntal fabric to reveal all five themes at once. These superimposed ideas, their counterpoint inverted, stand alongside the great choral works of Bach — or the Act II septet from Mozart’s own Marriage of Figaro. 

“When Mozart wrote the finale, he cannot have known that it would be his valedictory essay in the genre, for he had every reason to expect to live into the 19th century,” writes the American musicologist Neal Zaslaw in his 1989 study, Mozart’s Symphonies. “Yet had he known, he could hardly have found a more telling summation of the journey he had traveled in his symphonies from lighthearted entertainment … to serious works of art at the center of the musical universe.” 

Kurt Loft © 2024 

Kurt Loft is a journalist and music critic who has covered classical music for various publications and arts groups for more than 40 years. A member of the Music Critics Association of North America, he lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.