Mozart wrote the “Linz” Symphony in late October and early November 1783, completing it in perhaps as little as six days’ time, between his arrival in Linz on October 30 and the first performance on November 4. Mozart and his wife Constanze were stopping in town on their way back to Vienna after a visit in Salzburg with Mozart’s father Leopold. Mozart was asked by his host, Count Thun, to give a concert at the theater and subsequently wrote to his father on October 31: “Because I have not a single symphony with me, I am working at breakneck speed on a new one, which must be ready by [November 4]. I shall close now because I must positively get on with the job.” Mozart did finish the work on time, and it was performed in Linz on the appointed date.

Uncharacteristically for Mozart, the “Linz” Symphony opens with a slow introduction, a device Mozart had never used before in a symphony and employed only on two more occasions (in Symphonies Nos. 38 and 39). Slow introductions have a definite dramatic function to serve. They set the stage for the symphony by posing a “problem,” a “question” that the fast movement is to resolve. The “problem” is represented by a musical texture out of the ordinary, unusual melodic gestures and so forth, to be answered by the simpler tonal language of the Allegro section.

Symphony No. 36 opens with a powerful unison melody with wide leaps that immediately catch our attention. This theme serves as a kind of “curtain-raiser.” As the violins, and later the winds, start to play their soft, lyrical melodies, the tonality darkens to minor in a “problematic” move awaiting resolution.

After this somewhat troubling introduction, the “Allegro spiritoso” begins with a simple, straightforward melody that soon turns into a triumphant march. Throughout the movement, the themes tend to be somewhat angular and rhythmic, with a great deal of discontinuity in their sequence. The development section brings the novelty of an ascending unaccompanied violin melody that suddenly seems to lose the rhythmic momentum the movement has had so far and waxes unstable, dreamy and lyrical, with a preponderance of minor keys.

If the first movement was characterized by discontinuity, the second, “Poco Adagio,” is essentially one big song for violins, to which the rest of the orchestra contributes important counter-melodies. It is rare for a Mozart slow movement to include trumpets and timpani; their presence here creates an exceptional sonority, underscoring the lyrical violin melody in a rather unusual manner. (This movement probably influenced the “Andante” of Beethoven’s First Symphony, which was written in the same key, in a similar meter, with the same orchestration.) The lyrical melody is interrupted in the development section, with a turn to the minor mode and a new staccato melody (using short, separated notes), first played by cellos, basses and bassoons. The initial violin melody then returns, and the movement proceeds peacefully to the end.

In the Minuet, a fanfare-like theme alternates with more singable, melodious strains. The Trio has the character of a Ländler, the Austrian folk dance first introduced into symphonic music by Joseph Haydn. The simple Ländler tune is developed in imitation involving oboe and bassoon solos.

The fourth movement is lively and vigorous, in the contradance-like 2/4 meter found in so many of Haydn’s and Mozart’s finales. The vitality of the music never lets up for a moment. There are frequent changes in texture: unison passages are contrasted with harmonized ones, soft sections for strings only are followed by the forte of the full orchestra, and homophony (melody with accompaniment) alternates with a simple form of counterpoint (two melodic lines of equal importance). All these contrasts are counterbalanced by the movement’s strong thematic unity: the two principal melodies are close variants of one another. The development section is based on one of the transitional themes from the exposition, taken up in turn by every instrument in the orchestra except brass and timpani. The recapitulation follows the exposition almost literally, except for the short and brilliant coda.

Notes By Peter Laki