When Mozart set out to write three symphonies in the summer of 1788, he could not have known that they would be his last essays in the genre. He was eager to bring in much needed additional income, as the Vienna premiere of his opera Don Giovanni in the spring had not been an unequivocal success. The general reaction was that the music was too learned and complex for all but a handful of connoisseurs, and Emperor Joseph II himself commented that “Mozard’s [sic] music is certainly too difficult to be sung.” With a wife and young son to support (his infant daughter had died in June), Mozart hoped to improve his financial footing with a series of concerts at one of Vienna’s casinos. Elegant social clubs rather than gambling houses, casinos in Mozart’s Vienna were places where patrons could dine, chat, read newspapers, play games, dance and enjoy music.
Whether the casino concerts ever came to pass is an open question; indeed there is no hard evidence to suggest that Mozart’s final three symphonies were performed during his lifetime, although it is entirely possible that they were. Mozart may also have planned to bring them on a visit to London that unfortunately never came to pass; however, the nickname of his final symphony, “Jupiter,” did come from the London-based impresario Johann Peter Salomon, who bestowed the moniker on the symphony after the composer’s untimely death.
Mozart saw himself primarily as a composer of operas, so it is perhaps not surprising that he never wrote another symphony in the three years he had left to live, which instead witnessed the production of Cosi fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte and La Climenza di Tito. Mozart lived at a time when the idea of a canon of immortal musical masterpieces was only beginning to take shape, and while symphonies were regarded as the pinnacle of instrumental composition, they functioned rather differently on concert programs than they do today. Instead of appearing toward the end of a program, a symphony normally would begin a concert. The logic was that the most complex music should be presented first, while the audience was still fresh. Additionally, in an era when dimming candle-lit halls was impractical, the customary loud, grand opening with full orchestra served as the signal to the audience that they needed to be quiet because the concert was beginning.
The symphony served to set the mood and transport listeners to the realm of the sublime and the beautiful, preparing them for the lighter and more varied assemblage of chamber music, arias, solo improvisations and concerti to follow. At the end of the concert, the final movement of the symphony could be repeated, and it is possible that on some occasions the last movement could have been separated from the rest of the symphony and played only at the very end of the concert. A symphony thus served as a sort of framing device, bringing an audience into the world of music and then delivering them back to the outside world at the end.
The “Jupiter” Symphony certainly succeeded as few ever had before. Indeed, many critics and music lovers regard this work as the pinnacle of Mozart’s instrumental music. Its combination of simplicity and complexity, melodic invention and emotional depth remain unsurpassed. Though Mozart never knew of its nickname, the image of the Roman god Jupiter seems to fit with the feelings of grandeur, joy and wonder that the work inspires.
The Music
The symphony begins with a striking contrast: three loud “drum roll” motifs lead to a soft, rising phrase in the violins:
The contrast recalls a familiar subject from ancien regime painting—Mars and Venus, the Roman gods of war and love, respectively. The martial character of the music initially prevails, full of pomp and bluster. This military character may have been a nod to Austria’s impending war with the Ottoman Empire, a war that would unfortunately prove deleterious to Mozart’s career, as its economic disruptions would reduce the disposable income his patrons had to spend on music.
A grand fanfare-like passage leads to a long held note. As we will see, pauses and silences will play just as important a role in this movement as melodies and harmonies. After the pause the “drum roll” theme returns, but this time quietly, with a more delicate countermelody above it in the woodwinds. This new variation grows and gathers strength, leading to another pause. Ever the opera composer, Mozart has the orchestra take a quick breath before beginning a new melody “in the singing style.” Its rising profile recalls the gentle violin phrase from the opening, and its quintessentially Mozartian chromaticism adds a sensual playfulness. While the melody begins in the violins, it is soon echoed in the cellos and basses, imitating an operatic duet between a soprano and bass.
As this theme unfurls, it becomes ever softer and higher, fading into nothing. After a grand pause, the orchestra enters fortissimo on a shocking C minor chord, disrupting the playful mood. The music soon recovers, leading to one more pause. We then here a rustic, folk-song like tune that is actually a quotation from Mozart’s concert aria “Un bacio di mano” (“A kiss on the hand”), K. 541. The words to the melody are “You are a bit innocent, my dear Pompeo,/Go study the ways of the world.”
Sure enough, this naïve theme will gain much experience in the development that follows. First, however, the music returns to the beginning and we hear an exact repetition of everything we have heard so far. The repetition of the opening section of a movement (referred to as the exposition by later theorists) allowed listeners to better familiarize themselves with the main melodies and ideas of a piece of music that they likely would never have heard before.
After the repeat, the innocent closing theme of the exposition slips into a distant key, and then becomes the subject of tumultuous contrapuntal developments. The music becomes quieter, and the opening “drum roll” theme seems to reappear, but it soon becomes clear that this a false return as the music continues to fragment and evolve. When the “drum roll” theme does reappear in full, the other main melodies of the movement follow, each subtly changed by the conflict of the development. The movement comes to a jubilant close, and the tension seems to be resolved for the moment.
In the slower second movement, Mozart is at his most lyrical. The opening melody is halting at first, as if hesitant to express itself, but soon unfurls into one of Mozart’s loveliest creations. With little warning, the music suddenly turns to a minor key with a restless, syncopated figure in the violins. This profoundly expressive music leads to a more hymn-like, consoling theme, the end of which features an operatic duet between the violins and flute. After this opening material repeats, we plunge into an intensified version of the restless, syncopated music. After reaching an exquisite climax, the opening theme returns with extensive ornamentation. Instead of the darker, syncopated music, a new transition leads to the hymn-like theme, resolving the tension. The movement ends with a final appearance of the opening theme. Although this ending was added by Mozart as an afterthought, it brings the movement to a satisfying close.
The third movement is a minuet, the most popular ballroom dance of Mozart’s era. To facilitate dancing, ballroom minuets were necessarily square and predictable, so composers like Mozart enjoyed making their symphonic minuets as irregular and unpredictable as possible by playing games with the music’s pulse. Listen to the low bass instruments to hear how Mozart shifts the stress of the beat from phrase to phrase. The minuet also has a contrasting middle section that plays with the repetitious nature of the minuet; the two chords that begin this new melody are also serve as the melody’s own ending. As the melody repeats, it ends and begins itself simultaneously. This “loop” is interrupted by a surprising outburst in A minor, which then slyly fades back into the loop. After the contrasting middle section, the opening section repeats.
The first three movements feature purposely clear and simple textures; the main melodic line is always reinforced by the other parts so that it speaks as directly as possible, and any contrapuntal passages are kept fairly simple. This restraint prepares the audience for the finale’s dazzling complexity.
In the finale, Mozart reveals his unsurpassed mastery of counterpoint, the art of weaving different melodies together simultaneously. The melody that begins the finale is based on the following four notes:
These notes were actually the beginning of an exercise from Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to Parnassus), a counterpoint textbook that is still sometimes used in music schools today. Nearly every composer in Mozart’s time would have recognized it from their first studies of counterpoint. Students would have been given this melody and then asked to write a series of increasingly complex melodies that fit together with it. It is as if Mozart were saying, “You had your crack at this exercise. Now see what I can do with it.”
Mozart transforms this staid exercise into a jaunty tune before launching into an overwhelming cascade of melodies, countermelodies, cannons, fugues, inversions, stretti and all manner of contrapuntal complexities. Different gestures allude to the previous movements: most notably, the opening “drum roll” figure returns. Mozart wears his extraordinary genius lightly; ultimately this music is an expression of joy and imagination that defies the ‘serious’ reputation of counterpoint as a dour art form.
He saves his most brilliant idea for last. As the symphony draws to its close, the music comes to a halt with one final pause. We then hear the four notes return as a pure counterpoint exercise before they are combined with four of the movement’s melodies simultaneously in a quintuple fugue:
This passage, the culmination of the entire symphony, reveals that these seemingly diverse ideas were in fact designed to fit together from the beginning, like the cosmos itself. As the symphony races to its joyous conclusion, it is easy to understand why the nineteenth century commentator Aleksandr Ulïbïchev wrote, “One must hear this music to believe it possible.”
Don’t miss the Houston Symphony’s performances of Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony on October 20, 21 & 22, 2017. Get tickets and more info at houstonsymphony.org.
