Mozart: The Symphonies

[Guy Berger]

The subtitle is tongue in cheek, of course.

The final five symphonies are regularly praised, and for good reason. But there are some really excellent Salzburg symphonies as well -- esp #29. On the other hand I think "Paris", despite having a "name", is not that much better than its neighboring symphonies.

Any thoughts?

[BruceH]

Yes indeed: I like #'s 25 and 29 about as much as any.

[John L]

& not that good, or great, unless "mere" "craft" is yr all-day hardon, yr all-night lickin' stick-- mama come here quick!!. you can argue the % is ok-- ok, but then there's Haydn, or Mo's own piano concertos (> symphs as whole), that Swedish fucker (Kraus), some other Austrians (ya'll know the ones). VERDICT: a generally overexposed, overpraised body of work, albeit w/a handful-- NO MORE-- of exceptions that strong period bands make worthwhile. edc, author Class Struggles In The Pit (Bobbs-Merilll 1974).

Just to clarify: surely, your comments apply to 25 & 29, as opposed to 40 & 41. Those latter two never cease to amaze me.

[Bluerein]

Surely you can't take clem too seriously at all!!!!

[Guy Berger]

& not that good, or great, unless "mere" "craft" is yr all-day hardon, yr all-night lickin' stick-- mama come here quick!!. you can argue the % is ok-- ok, but then there's Haydn, or Mo's own piano concertos (> symphs as whole), that Swedish fucker (Kraus), some other Austrians (ya'll know the ones). VERDICT: a generally overexposed, overpraised body of work, albeit w/a handful-- NO MORE-- of exceptions that strong period bands make worthwhile. edc, author Class Struggles In The Pit (Bobbs-Merilll 1974).

Won't really disagree with the fact that as a whole it's not "great" -- the early symphonies are OK (pleasant "craft", as you say -- but by K 130 or whatever you start moving beyond that), and if those first 40-45 symphonies had been composed by a AW Trazom, we would probably remember the guy as another 2nd-tier 1770s composer of symphonies. In which case you would probably be plugging him...

But... I am guessing that at least some people here have not listened to anything before the Haffner, and they would probably be pleasantly surprised. Certainly #29 is a great work regardless of the name attached to it or the period in which it was composed.

(#25 is a nice change of pace, but I would put it a cut below the minor key symphonies composed by Haydn during the same period.)

Guy