Let's first talk about Mozart the composer. Mozart, as you probably already know, was a child prodigy. He was composing and performing at a young age (again, I need to go back through my handouts to work out exactly what age he was composing at). His older sister Nannerl was also pretty damn good too, but Mozart quickly overshadowed her. As children, Mozart's father arranged for trips around Europe to show off his children to the courts of Europe. What a childhood!
Mozart wrote a hell of a lot of music during his lifetime. Some of it was composed for people that he worked for, as during those times a lot of composers still had to work in the service of noble families. At one point, though, he had trouble looking for work, and started having financial difficulties. In addition, he had kidney failure (I think it was kidney failure anyway), so not only did he have financial difficulties, but his health was also failing. At this time, a cloaked figure came asking him to write a Requiem (a funeral mass). The cloaked guy probably wanted it for his wife or something, but as Mozart was already sick, he became obsessed with the idea that the cloaked figure was a messenger telling him to write a requiem for his own death! Mozart, still poor at the time of his death, was buried in an anonymous grave.
Mozart wrote his final three symphonies, 39, 40 and 41, in 1788, three years before his death. (I feel like I need to say something else here, like I need to elaborate on that sentence, but I can't think of anything to say.)
Now, for this post, I'm going to be concentrating on his Symphony no. 40. Symphony no. 40 was scored for flute, oboe, Bb clarinet (yay!), bassoon, violins I and II, cello, double bass, and horns. (Cello and double bass share the same line of music.) It is in sonata form- that is, it has an exposition, development and recapitulation.
In the first theme of the exposition, you have the ever-famous 3-note motif in G minor. This three-note motif is repeated a few times before being followed by an upward leap of a minor 6th (my textbook refers to this as the "rocket theme"). The accompaniment has lots of repeated quavers reminiscent of the sturm und drang movement as seen in music. Towards the end of the first theme, there are a few pedal notes in the oboes and bassoons, before leading into the bridge with its broken chords in the lower parts and arpeggiated chords (not sure if that's how you're meant to describe them) in the violins. At the end of the bridge is a bar of dramatic silence to build up tension- another sturm und drang technique. The second theme is in Bb major, the relative major, and is softer and gentler, as the 2nd theme of many sonata-form works tend to be. This theme is characterised by a descending chromatic line. Adding to the "gentleness" of this theme is the fact that the woodwinds get more of a chance to shine. Towards the end there is a long drawn-out crescendo which my textbook refers to as a "steamroller effect," then there's a codetta in which the 3-note motif is played in imitation between the clarinet and bassoon. Right at the end of the codetta the cello and double bass repeatedly play the dominant and tonic notes in order to reinforce the perfect cadence (V - I) that is to conclude the exposition.
The development, true to its name, takes the two themes introduced in the exposition and develops them. The first theme is first developed. It is given an unexpected ending, and the theme is also fragmented (I think this basically means that only part of the theme is used) and played over and over again in a descending sequence. Contrasting dynamics are used- these descending sequences were played piano, but are soon interrupted by a forte entry by all of the instruments at once. A different fragment is then played in another descending sequence, with those repeated quavers beneath in that sturm und drang style. The instruments are then suddenly cut away to leave only flute, clarinet, bassoon and violin I, all playing piano. Clarinet 2 and bassoon play a pedal note while the other instruments have some kind of interplay where they echo each other playing the melody. Soon, some more instruments come in, and the descending 3-note motif in the violins is contrasted with an inverted 3-note motif in the woodwinds. Soon the dynamics suddenly jump back to forte and all of the strings come in with the 3-note motif, sometimes inverted, sometimes in its original form, while the woodwinds play ascending and descending arpeggiated chords reminiscent of the bridge passage in the exposition. The end of the development has the 3-note motif in sequential imitation in the woodwinds with some chromaticism reminiscent of the second theme of the exposition. Soon the development is finished and it's back to the recapitulation.
The 1st theme of the recapitulation is very similar to the first theme of the exposition, but towards the end it is altered slightly to lead into a slightly longer bridge section in which the arpeggiated chords are played in the bass lines and the violins have sequential quaver runs. The second theme appears this time in G minor. The coda of the recapitulation is also a bit longer than the codetta of the exposition, before the whole work draws to a close with a perfect cadence followed by a few G minor chords.
Wow, I'm not actually too bad about writing on and on about music. It might actually come in handy during my Music Lit test tomorrow. It had better do, because I feel that I'm actually quite shaky on the Classical and Romantic periods.
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