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39 (Mozart) - Wikipedia

Symphony No. 39 (Mozart)

The Symphony No. 39 in E ♭ major of Wolfgang Amadeus
Symphony No. 39
Mozart, K. 543, was completed on 26 June 1788.[1]
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Contents
Composition
Premiere
First eyewitness account
Instrumentation and movements
References
Notes
Sources
External links
Mozart c. 1788
Key E♭ major
Composition
Catalogue K. 543
The Symphony No. 39 is the first of a set of three (his last Composed 1788
symphonies) that Mozart composed in rapid succession during the Movements
four
summer of 1788. No. 40 was completed on 25 July and No. 41 on 10
August.[1] Nikolaus Harnoncourt argues that Mozart composed the
three symphonies as a unified work, pointing, among other things, to the fact that the Symphony No. 39
has a grand introduction (in the manner of an overture) but no coda.[2]

Around the time that he composed the three symphonies, Mozart was writing his piano trios in E major
and C major (K. 542 and K. 548), his sonata facile (K. 545), and a violin sonatina (K. 547). Mozart
biographer Alfred Einstein has suggested that Mozart took Michael Haydn's Symphony No. 26, in the
same key, as a model.[3]

Premiere
It seems to be impossible to determine the date of the premiere of the 39th Symphony on the basis of
currently available evidence; in fact, it cannot be established whether the symphony was ever performed
in the composer's lifetime. According to Deutsch (1965), around the time Mozart wrote the work, he was
preparing to hold a series of "Concerts in the Casino", in a new casino in the Spiegelgasse owned by
Philipp Otto. Mozart even sent a pair of tickets for this series to his friend Michael von Puchberg. But it
seems impossible to determine whether the concert series was held or was cancelled for lack of
interest.[1] In addition, in the period up to the end of his life, Mozart participated in various other
concerts the programs of which included an unidentified symphony; these also could have been the
occasion of the premiere of the 39th (for details, see Symphony No. 40 (Mozart)).

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First eyewitness account

However, we now have what is likely the first known eyewitness account of the performance of the 39th
Symphony. An all-Mozart memorial concert took place in Hamburg in March 1792, where the verified
performance of this Symphony was noted by an eyewitness named Iwan Anderwitsch, who describes the
start of the symphony as follows:

The opening is so majestic that it so surprised even the coldest, most insensitive listener and
non-expert, that even if he wanted to chat, it prevented him from being inattentive, and thus,
so to speak, put him in a position to become all ears. It then becomes [so] fiery, full, ineffably
grand and rich in ideas, with striking variety in almost all obbligato parts, that it is nearly
impossible to follow so rapidly with ear and feeling, and one is nearly paralyzed. This actual
paralysis became visible in various connoisseurs and friends of music, and some admitted
that they would never have been able to think or imagine they would hear something like this
performed so splendidly in Hamburg.[4]

In modern times, the work is part of the core symphonic repertoire and is frequently performed and
recorded.

Instrumentation and movements

The symphony is scored for flute, pairs of clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings.

There are four movements:

I. Adagio, (Alla breve)[5] — Allegro, 4

3 (in sonata form)

2 (in modified sonata form without development)

II. Andante con moto in A♭ major, 4
3 (in compound ternary form)
III. Menuetto (Allegretto) — Trio, 4
2 (in sonata form)
IV. Allegro, 4

The first movement opens with a majestic introduction with fanfares heard in the brass section. This is
followed by an Allegro in sonata form, though while several features – the loud outburst following the
soft opening, for instance – connect it with the galant school that influences the earliest of his
symphonies. The independence of the winds and greater interplay of the parts in general, and the fact
that the second theme group contains several themes (including a particularly felicitous "walking
theme") compared to those earlier symphonies whose second groups were practically always completely
trivial, are just a very few of the points that distinguish this movement from those earlier works, from
which it has more differences than similarities.

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The slow movement, in abridged sonata form, i.e. no development section,[6] starts quietly in the strings
and expands into the rest of the orchestra. Quiet main material and energetic, somewhat agitated
transitions characterize this movement. The key is A♭ major, the subdominant of E♭ major.

The work has a very interesting minuet and trio. The trio is an Austrian folk dance called a "Ländler" and
features a clarinet solo. The forceful Menuetto is set off by the trio's unusual tint of the second clarinet
playing arpeggios in its low (chalumeau) register. The melody for this particular folk dance derived from
local drinking songs which were popular in Vienna during the late 18th century.

The finale is another sonata form whose main theme, like that of the later string quintet in D, is mostly a
scale, here ascending and descending. The development section is dramatic; there is no coda, but both
the exposition, and the development through the end of the recapitulation, are requested to be, and often
are, repeated.

References

Notes
1. Deutsch 1965, 320
2. Clements, Andrew (23 July 2014). "Mozart: The Last Symphonies review – a thrilling journey through
a tantalising new theory" (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/23/mozart-last-symphonies-ni
kolaus-harnoncourt-review). The Guardian.
3. "But, as regards the E-flat Symphony [K. 543], it was probably the beginning of a symphony by
Michael of 14 August 1783—Mozart was then in Salzburg and may have become acquainted with
the work—that supplied the stimulus for the first Allegro: Ex. 7 [four bars of music are quoted in piano
reduction] Similarly with the Adagio affettuoso of the Haydn work and Mozart's Andante." (Einstein
1945, 127)
4. Black, David. "A personal response to the Mozart memorial concert in Hamburg and the Symphony
in E-flat (K. 543)" (https://sites.google.com/site/mozartdocuments/documents/1792-02-19-anderwitsc
h). Mozart: New Documents, edited by Dexter Edge and David Black. Retrieved May 10, 2017.
5. Older scores show the introduction in 4 4. See the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe for verification of the cut time
marking.
6. http://hem.bredband.net/urigonzalez/treitler_imagination_chapter7.htm

Sources
Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965) Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Einstein, Alfred (1945) Mozart: His Character, His Work, translated into English by Arthur Mendel &
Nathan Broder. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

External links

Sinfonie in E-flat KV 543: Score (https://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/nma_cont.php?vsep=111&gen

=edition&l=1&p1=1) and critical report (https://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/nma_cont.php?vsep=11
2&l=1&p1=3) (in German) in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
Symphony No. 39: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)

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The apartment where Mozart wrote his last three Symphonies: Michael Lorenz, "Mozart's Apartment
on the Alsergrund" Article online (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/michael.lorenz/alsergrund)

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