I went back and listened to Mozart’s last four symphonies again (written about on days 1 and 2), and I just enjoy them so much, so I’m happy to listen to another.
The Recording
Once again, I’m listening to Sir Neville Marriner leading the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
Couldn’t find a YouTube version of this recording.
Symphony No. 36 in C, K. 425 “Linz”
1. Adagio – Allegro spiritoso
- Slow intro
- Mournful a little
- The allegro spiritoso music begins quietly happy.
- Very active bass role
- Some nice woodwind moments
- Four double quarter pickup entrances, each with different instruments and dynamics. It’s funny hearing them all.
- In first theme, I like the play between the first and second violins.
- Really effectively builds tension to cadences here.
2. Andante con moto
- Dreamy beginning.
- Simultaneous accompanying arpeggios of different rhythms happening at one point.
- Returns to repeated unison notes in horns and winds and timpani at various dynamic levels. Kind of foreboding. Idea introduced with single notes and then is expanded.
- Coooooool development. Love the addition of different musical ideas over time. Patient and not overbearing. Tied together with repeating bass lines.
3. Menuetto
- It’s a minuet.
- Restrained tempo.
- Lots of parallel harmonies in trio.
4. Presto
- Quiet/loud. K
- All very active
- Contrasting lines in violins vs. viola/cello/bass in second section. Cool effect. Built up slowly.
- Then imitative lively entrances
- More tension building towards cadence of exposition.
- Violins and cello/basses having a back and forth.
- Oboe for color.
- In recap, oboes added to what had just been the string imitative entrances.
- Wow. Tension build up to coda. Grace notes flying on higher notes. First violins have syncopated accents on C (had been in second violins, and on a lower note before). Really effective.
- Subtle changes in the recapitulation make it a more exciting ending.
Takeaways
I enjoy this piece. The minuet/trio is pretty standard issue, but there’s a lot to listen to in the other movements, which are all in sonata form. There’s a lot more interesting things happening within instrument groups than I noticed from his earlier symphonies.
Additionally, the idea that Mozart finds some musical novelty to tie pieces together is also very much in play here, but instead of tying together a whole piece, they tie together sections within a movement. There are several instances where such ideas grow over time and transform within their respective sections, such as the development of the second movement with the rising bass lines.
I guess that’s all the symphonies that I’ll be listening to for this project unless I jump way back to his earliest works. Which I probably won’t do.
Until next time.
