It's no ordinary minor score

Today I'm celebrating Wolfgang Mozart's completion of his Symphony No. 40 (K550) in G minor. This symphony is often called the Great G Minor Symphony, distinguishing it from his Little G Minor Symphony, No. 25. The symphony exists in two versions; in the second, the flute and oboe parts were revised for the addition of two clarinets. It notably excludes trumpets and timpani. It is one of my favorite symphonies. The opening theme of the first movement has been unforgettable to me, described by some as a nervous, urgent theme. I can almost still see in my mind the graphical image of the music that I drew during those music lit sessions to better remember the music and to decipher its form. If you listen closely in the fourth movement, you will hear some technical surprises as well.

Some say that this symphony, one of only two written in a minor key, perhaps reflects the grim circumstances of Mozart's life at the time, his growing poverty, fading popularity, cancelled concerts, and his daughter's death. Mozart had written in a letter begging for a loan, "Black thoughts...often come to me...thoughts that I push away with a tremendous effort." Albert Einstein called the first and last movements "plunges into the abyss of the soul" and Charles Rosen described this work as one of Mozart's "supreme expressions of suffering and terror." Classical Notes describes "its darker tone was hailed as a rare advance from the presumed superficiality of Mozart's other work....an astounding balance and blending of seeming opposites: polished precision and spontaneous utterance, stringent formalism and heartfelt emotion, personal expression and universal humanism...". At the beginning of the development section of the finale, Mozart launches into a very surprising, unexpected chromatic segment in unison and syncopation "structured with rigorous mathematical logic" described as "rude octaves and frozen silences" by the critic Michael Steinberg. Barbara Heninger notes that "Mozart has taken us on an unusual voyage, but in the end his musical language still achieves a balance, order, and resolution." I love Classical Notes' description that "the remaining half of the movement seems ever so brighter and its burdens lighter, as Mozart's glance into the future adds just a glimmer of hope, as if to say that although life itself is basically sorrowful, steadfast dignity and faith in the future hold a crucial promise of uplift and redemption." I choose to believe that as well.

Today I celebrate Mozart's expression through music, with a tad of mathematical influence, the glimmer of hope and the promise of the future.

All four movements can be heard from YouTube, but you can hear the first movement from a YouTube video of a concert by The New Philharmonic Tokyo Chamber here: