36 2014 Program Notes, Book 10
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183
(1773)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 is scored for two oboes, two bassoons,
four horns and strings. The performance time is 24 minutes. The
Grant Park Orchestra first performed this work on July 2, 1939,
with Henry Weber conducting.
Vienna was the home to many of the most outstanding
musicians of the late 18th century. Hasse, Gluck, Gassmann, Wagenseil, Salieri, Haydn,
Dittersdorf, Vanhal and many others made Vienna the greatest music city of the day.
Several of those composers, most notably Joseph Haydn, were experimenting in the
1770s with a style that brought a new, passionately romantic sensibility to their music
— the so-called
Sturm und Drang
(“
Storm and Stress
”) — that was characterized
by minor keys, expressive harmonies and rhythmic agitation. By 1773, Haydn had
composed some fifty symphonies of which at least six were in minor keys, including the
“Lamentation” (No. 26 in D minor), the “Mourning” (No. 44 in E minor), the renowned
“Farewell” (No. 45 in F-sharp minor) and the “Passione” (No. 49 in F minor). During his
visit to Vienna that summer, the seventeen-year-old Mozart heard another of Haydn’s
minor-key symphonies, No. 39 in G minor, and it stirred his interest in exploring the
expressive possibilities of this revolutionary musical language. On his return to Salzburg
in September, Mozart wrote his own
Sturm und Drang
symphony — No. 25, K. 183. He
cast it in G minor, his first orchestral piece in that somber key except for the overture
to the early oratorio
La Betulia liberata
, K. 118 (1771). He was to write only one other
minor-key symphony: the sublime No. 40, K. 550 of 1788, also in G minor.
The occasion for which the “Little” G minor Symphony was composed is unknown,
as is the date of its premiere. Some commentators assert that Mozart composed it to
vent his anger and frustration over his “Salzburg captivity,” as he rather injudiciously
dubbed his position at the archiepiscopal court in his hometown. It is unlikely, however,
that he would have voiced his rage in just this one isolated piece. Not only are the works
surrounding it of consistently sunny countenance, but Mozart also deliberately kept
the emotions of his daily life separate from those of his music. It is more probable that,
in this daring work, he was simply trying the limits of the newly discovered
Sturm und
Drang
style. Such a notion aligns with the development of his music at that time toward
enriching his earlier sweet,
gallant
style based on Italian music with the harmonic and
textural weight of the German composers.
The Symphony No. 25 opens with a pulsing motive, more rhythmic than melodic,
as the first movement’s main theme. After a simple, poignant phrase in the oboe and
a pregnant silence, the stormy transition from G minor to the contrasting key begins.
Another, briefer pause precedes the second theme, a step-wise motive presented by the
violins in B-flat major. (Mozart time and again used such silences to clarify a movement’s
structure. Silence in music is, most definitely,
not
nothing.) A compact development
section leads to a recapitulation of the earlier themes, with the second theme heard in the
dark coloring of the principal tonality. A short coda returns the opening pulsing motive to
close the movement. The
Andante
is filled with the marvelous synthesis of Italian charm
and Germanic emotion that characterizes Mozart’s best works. Its touching lyrical style and
languorous orchestral sound are wedded to a melody that comprises almost exclusively
falling steps — the “musical teardrop” that was inextricably linked with the expression of
wistful sadness in 18th-century German music. The
Minuet
, with its bare octaves, returns
the Symphony to the stark mood of the opening movement; the contrasting central trio for
wind choir without strings provides the only emotionally untroubled portion of the work.
The finale, another sonata structure, maintains the mood of restless agitation to the end.
