Mozart's profound genius on jaw-dropping display...
Performed by Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Giordano Bellincampi.
Giordano Bellincampi Photo: Andreas Kohring
The nickname for this symphony, "Jupiter", was apparently coined by the German violinist and composer Johann Salomon, because the symphony’s opening chords reminded him of Jupiter’s thunderbolts.
It’s Mozart’s last and longest symphony, and it regularly ranks in the top ten in popular surveys of “The Greatest Symphonies of All Time”.
It's the last of a set of three that Mozart composed in rapid succession in the summer of 1788. It’s not known whether he ever heard it performed.
There are four movements: an opening allegro that gets right down to business without the usual introduction; an Andante Cantabile; and a Minuet. But it’s in the last movement, Molto Allegro, that Mozart displays his compositional skill at its most dazzling. This is an exercise in complex Bach-style counterpoint (although it doesn’t sound like Bach), with five themes that combine with one another in ever more inventive and jaw-dropping ways, culminating in an exhilarating fugue featuring all five themes at once. The first of these themes is a four-note bit of plainchant – the same thing that Haydn did at the beginning of this concert.
Text by Indra Hughes
Recorded by RNZ Concert, 8 November 2018
Producer: Tim Dodd; Sound engineer: Adrian Hollay
