World Premiere: July 25, 1788
Most Recent HSO Performance: November 30, 2010
Instrumentation: 1 flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings: violin I, violin II, viola, cello, and bass
Duration: 35'
“Music is the heart of God, and Mozart is His voice.” So says the character of Antonio Salieri, the court composer to Austrian Emperor Joseph II, who is portrayed by Peter Shaffer in his brilliant (but misleading in its puerile characterization of the title character) play/movie Amadeus as being maniacally jealous of his young competitor. Shaffer, also known for the gripping drama Equus, spent two years in reading and research in an attempt to understand the life, works and personality of Mozart. As has everyone else, he came up against a solid wall of bafflement in trying to fathom this particular genius which has never known an equal in the entire history of music. The perfection of form coupled with the depth and purity of feeling heard in Mozart’s compositions cannot be explained by any exercise of mere human logic. It surpasses our limited purview, and, lacking any other inkling of comprehension, one is forced to admit that Mozart’s inspiration might, indeed, have been “divine.” Shaffer-Salieri echoes the sentiments of George Bernard Shaw, who believed that Sarastro’s arias in The Magic Flute were the only music fit to issue from the mouth of God.
At no time was the separation between Mozart’s personal life and his transcendent music more apparent than in the summer of 1788, when, at the age of 32, he had only three years to live. His wife was ill and his own health was beginning to fail; his six-month-old daughter died on July 29th; Don Giovanni received a disappointing reception at its Viennese premiere on May 7th; he had small prospect of participating in any important concerts in the foreseeable future; and he was so impoverished and indebted that he would not answer a knock on the door for fear of finding a creditor there. Yet, amid all these difficulties, he produced, in less than two months, the three crowning jewels of his orchestral output, the Symphonies Nos. 39, 40 and 41.
The G minor alone of the last three symphonies may reflect the composer’s distressed emotional state at the time of its composition. It is among those great works of Mozart that look forward to the passionately charged music of the 19th century while epitomizing the structural elegance of the waning Classical era. “It may be,” wrote Eric Blom, “that the G minor Symphony is the work in which Classicism and Romanticism meet and where once and for all we see a perfect equilibrium between them, neither outweighing the other by the tiniest fraction. It is in this respect, at least, the perfect musical work.”
The Symphony’s pervading mood of tragic restlessness is established immediately at the outset by a simple, arpeggiated figure in the violas above which the violins play the agitated main theme. This melody is repeated with added woodwind chords to lead through a stormy transition to the second theme. After a moment of silence (a technique Mozart frequently used to emphasize important structural junctures), a contrasting, lyrical melody (in B-flat major) is shared by strings and winds. The respite from the movement’s prevailing powerful energy provided by the dulcet second theme is brief, however, and the level of tension soon mounts again. The wondrous development section gives prominence to the fragmented main theme. The recapitulation returns the earlier themes in heightened settings.
The Andante, in sonata form (as are all the movements of Mozart’s last six symphonies, save the minuets), uses rich chromatic harmonies and melodic half-steps to create a mood of brooding intensity and portentous asceticism. Much of the movement, especially the development, makes use of the repeated notes of the opening theme and the quick, fluttering figures of the second subject.
Because of its somber minor-key harmonies, powerful irregular phrasing and dense texture, the Minuet of the Symphony No. 40 was judged by Arturo Toscanini to be one of the most darkly tragic pieces ever written. The character of the Minuet is emphasized by its contrast with the central Trio, the only untroubled portion of the entire work.
The finale opens with a rocket theme that revives the insistent rhythmic energy of the first movement. The gentler second theme, with a full share of piquant chromatic inflections, slows the hurtling motion only briefly. The development section exhibits a contrapuntal ingenuity that few late 18th-century composers could match in technique, and none surpass in musicianship. A short but eloquent silence marks the beginning of the recapitulation, which maintains the Symphony’s tragic mood to the closing page of the work.
The evaluation that the French musicologist F.J. Fétis wrote of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 remains as valid today as when it appeared in 1828: “Although Mozart has not used formidable orchestral forces in his G minor Symphony, none of the sweeping and massive effects one meets in a symphony of Beethoven, the invention which flames in this work, the accents of passion and energy that pervade and the melancholy color that dominates it result in one of the most beautiful manifestations of the human spirit.”
©2022 Dr. Richard E. Rodda