Following Don Giovanni, in just one and a half months in the summer of 1788 Mozart created his three of his most well-known and monumental symphonies. The light and triumphantly resplendent Symphony in E Flat Major was completed on 26 June; one month later the elegiac Symphony in G Minor appeared – the predecessor of the romantic era in the 19th century – and, at last, the final bars of The Jupiter were composed on 10 August. These works were the culmination of the development of the composer’s symphonic works and, at the same time, its conclusion. With this triad of “grand symphonies” Mozart bid farewell to the genre. The composer proposed that the series be performed together at one symphony concert. But he did not live to see his final orchestral masterpieces performed.
Mozart’s final symphony – Symphony No 41 – is known as The Jupiter. Not given by the composer, the title is nonetheless highly appropriate: in the music of the symphony there is much stately triumph (on a scale that was grandiose for the time, the orchestra with trumpets and kettledrums and the semantics of C Major tonality – exultation, triumph and heroism). And, if the first symphony in the triad is closer to Haydn, then the last is the grandiose jewel in the crown of the Austrian composer’s entire symphonic legacy, the predecessor of Beethoven with his Die Heroische. The score of The Jupiter stuns us with its courageous optimism and its triumphant elation. Moreover, the dramatic side of the symphony is rather unusual: the “centre of gravity” of the work as a whole comes in the finale. This imbues the cycle a particularly imagistic and psychological definition and integrity.
The Strauss family has long been a symbol of Vienna. Their countless waltzes, polkas, quadrilles and mazurkas immediately and forever entered the lifeblood of the Viennese. Not one ball in Vienna passes without their being performed, and the New Year concerts at the Musikverein always conclude with a performance of the famous Radetzky March by Johann Strauss (Vater). Not one conductor who tours to this musical capital ever fails to include the Strausses’ music in their concerts.
Johann Strauss (Vater) composed over two hundred and fifty works (of which one hundred and fifty-two were waltzes). He had four sons. Three of them – Johann Strauss (Sohn), Eduard and Josef – followed in their father’s footsteps. The entire musical legacy of Strauss (Vater) was published in Leipzig in 1889 thanks to the efforts of his sons.
Johann Strauss (Sohn) became the undisputed king of the waltz. It is hard to imagine popularity greater than that which his music won. Strauss composed a vast number of works including one hundred and sixty-eight waltzes, one hundred and seventeen polkas, seventy-three quadrilles, forty-three marches, thirty-one mazurkas, fifteen operettas, a comic opera and a ballet. He did for theatre music what Gershwin did for jazz – he raised it to incredible symphonic heights. Strauss’ works have been admired by the most diverse composers, from Offenbach to Wagner and from Lehár to Tchaikovsky. For a lengthy period the composer toured to Russia: for ten seasons, beginning in 1856, he regularly performed at the Pavlovsk “Musical Railway Station”.
The greatest and most famous of his waltzes, written in the 1860s, are Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald and An der Schönen Blauen Donau. The latter became an unofficial national anthem of Austria.
Pavel Velikanov
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