What did Mozart do to the symphony to give it an upgrade?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart'south penultimate symphony is perhaps his virtually popular. Richard Wigmore surveys a selection of recordings – and busts a few Mozartian myths forth the way
In the sentimental tradition notwithstanding perpetuated in CD notes, Mozart composed his terminal three symphonies in the summer of 1788 from inner compulsion, with no prospect of performance. Alfred Einstein, in his widely read biography, writes of Mozart'due south 'appeal to eternity'. This is poppycock. Mozart never wrote without external stimuli. He well-nigh certainly intended the symphonies, Nos 39‑41, for subscription concerts he was planning in Vienna. A recently discovered document also reveals that No 40 was performed in a concert series organised by Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Information technology was plainly so poorly played that Mozart left the room before the stop. Beyond this, the three symphonies would have come in useful on Mozart's German tours in 1789 and 1790, and for a long-planned visit to London.
Podcast – Exploring Mozart: A special edition of the Gramophone Podcast sees Editor Martin Cullingford talk to Richard Wigmore about Mozart'due south extraordinary life and music.
While it is a romanticising fallacy to view Nos 39, 40 and 41 equally Mozart's symphonic testament, the contrasts betwixt them do suggest that he designed them to display the fullest range of his fine art. Like most minor-key symphonies of the solar day, the melancholy and turbulent No xl in G pocket-size omits trumpets and drums. Mozart originally scored it for a typical chamber orchestra of flute, oboes, bassoons, horns and strings. Soon afterwards – perhaps for the functioning at van Swieten'south – he enriched the orchestration with clarinets, drastically modifying the oboe parts in the process. In its revised version the symphony was probably performed in a charity concert at Vienna's Burgtheater in April 1791, conducted by Mozart's supposed adversary Salieri.
The Burgtheater in Vienna (Bridgeman Images)
Christian Schubart, the poet of his almost-namesake's song 'Die Forelle', characterised 1000 small as the central of 'discontent, unease, gritting of teeth in anger'. Add together in Mozart's harmonic brazenness and lyrical pathos and you have a fair summary of the symphony's outer movements. The finale rises to a pitch of anguish barely matched in Mozart's output. How ironic, then, that Robert Schumann, at a time when Mozart was either patronised or idealised as an emblem of a lost Eden, admired the 1000 pocket-size merely for its 'buoyant Hellenic amuse'!
In 1915 No 40 became Mozart'south first symphony to exist recorded, courtesy of the Victor Concert Orchestra. (Yous tin can check it out on YouTube. Once is enough.) A scattering of recordings followed betwixt the wars, since when a trickle has become a torrent. Past now dreaming in G minor, I've listened to some 50 versions, on CD and streamed. But to avoid an annotated shopping listing, I've cocky-denyingly express my survey to just 20 versions. Apologies to readers whose favourite recordings have no place hither. My aim is not to showcase the xx 'all-time' (whatever that ways) but to embrace a broad interpretative range across 9 decades.
LEGENDARY MAESTROS
Kickoff, a scattering of conductors born in the 19th century, with all that implies. In Germany, Hermann Abert's revolutionary biography of 1923‑24 had portrayed a demonically driven, ultimately tragic Mozart. In United kingdom that notion only gained currency much later. The two most influential advocates of Mozart between the wars were the composer-musicologist Donald Tovey, for whom the composer's exquisite formal perfection precluded tragedy, and Thomas Beecham, whose 1937 recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra is preserved in remarkably good sound.
Surprisingly for a musical sensualist, Beecham chooses the original version, minus clarinets. Tempos, except in the finale, are leisurely, with long sostenuto lines and liberal use of portamento – slides between notes. The Andante unfolds at a ponderous 6 beats to the bar, while the doggedly absolute Minuet is redeemed just by the nostalgic effeminateness of the Trio. Without plumbing extremes of anguish, the commencement movement combines strong nonetheless pliant rhythms with a con amore handling of the sighing second theme. The finale, shorn of its repeat, is taut and unflinching. The Dutton transfer (9/97 – nla) allows enough of crucial wind particular in the tuttis.
Either side of the Second World War, the two maestros who were often pitted against each other make for an intriguing, unpredictable comparison. With the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1938‑39, the 'back-to-the-score' anti-Romantic Arturo Toscanini, using the clarinet version, moulds the get-go movement as flexibly as whatsoever usher. The opening violin theme, with its added swells and ebbs, and the lingering leadback from the development to the recapitulation sum upwards the Toscanini approach. The groundswell of divided violas is barely aural.
In contrast, the subjective visionary Wilhelm Furtwängler, opting for the original version with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1948‑49, conceives the showtime movement in a single tragic span. The opening theme is starkly unbeautified, devoid of whatsoever hint of accent or crescendo. Beginning at a flowing andante – ii rather than six beats to the bar – and making liberal and expressive use of portamento, Toscanini's second move is as well freer in tempo than Furtwängler's. Like Beecham, Furtwängler views the movement as an adagio; all the same more Beecham, who tends to glory in the moment, he vindicates his slowness with a burdened, far-seeing intensity of line. Mozart'south remote modulations become mystically charged. The old gold of the Viennese horns glows seductively in the Trio, while the finale, transcending some scrambled string-playing, combines an most unhinged violence with the subtlest easing of the pulse for the second theme. Toscanini, by contrast, slams on the brakes here.
If Furtwängler presents the G minor Symphony as the creation of a demonically inspired Mozart, Bruno Walter, with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, conducts the well-nigh elegiac performance on disc. Y'all'd never gauge from Walter's backward-leaning operation that Mozart marked the showtime movement Allegro molto, with a time signature of two beats to the bar. 'Sing, gentlemen, sing' was the conductor'due south plea in a famous 1956 rehearsal of the Linz Symphony. He is true to his word here, seizing every opportunity for pathos. The Andante, ravishing equally sheer audio, is weighed down by loving ritardandos. Walter does display a fine command of tension in the developments of the outer movements. But the final impression is of a weary fatalism, epitomised by the pocket-sized-key returns of the 2nd themes and the woodwind's lingering envoi in the Minuet.
Libation and more than 'objective', Walter'due south gimmicky Otto Klemperer directs the Philharmonia in a typically rugged, plainly-speaking performance, i that sets a premium on clarity of texture. Merely with a leaden Andante and the steadiest finale on disc, the outcome is marmoreal. Klemperer does, though, score over near conductors before the 1990s by dividing the violins left and right, so that Mozart's antiphonal writing – say in the truculent counterpoint of the first motility'due south recapitulation – makes its due effect.
SLIMMED FORCES
All the pre-1960 performances utilize a string band based on a minimum of 12 first violins. From the mid-1960s, recordings of the 1000 small-scale Symphony with around 35 players began to appear alongside more traditional performances. Of the latter, Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan and Colin Davis accept their takers. More compelling, for me, is Leonard Bernstein's live 1984 recording with the Vienna Philharmonic. With Bernstein the dividing line between illumination and indulgence can be a thin one. On the whole he locates information technology here. The VPO strings play with lightness and point, and those so-distinctive Viennese horns cut through thrillingly. Despite the depression-voltage opening, Bernstein vindicates his leisurely tempos for the beginning two movements with the burning intensity of his phrasing. The finale, ominously glinting horns to the fore, is incandescent.
One of the earliest recordings with scaled-down forces, from Daniel Barenboim and the English Sleeping accommodation Orchestra, all the same stands upward well. The ECO ever played superbly for EMI's new star conductor, whose reverence for Furtwängler is unmissable. Like the German maestro, he chooses the original version minus the softening clarinets; and his tempos, ofttimes his phrasing, are about identical. The outer movements are as uncompromising equally Furtwängler's, with an added clarity and precision. More than than in any before recording, you're enlightened of Mozart's novel, autonomous handling of the current of air: say, in their cussed altercations with the strings towards the end of the beginning-movement development, or their wailing dissonances in the recapitulation's contrapuntal imbroglio.
Benjamin Britten: sleeping accommodation-musical delicacy with the ECO (Getty Images)
'Grace plus anomalous fierceness' was my jotted summary of the performance Benjamin Britten recorded with the same orchestra in the ideal acoustic of the Snape Maltings. Like about conductors from now on, Britten uses the version with clarinets, commencement amongst equals in the ECO's meridian wind department. The first movement, one-half a notch slower than Barenboim's, marries fire and subtle flexibility of pulse. No other conductor probes the symphony's harmonic darkness so unerringly. The private grapheme of the wind players shines in the Andante, a musing conversation broken past tutti outbursts of shocking ferocity. Britten was the commencement conductor on disc to notice both of Mozart's repeats in the Andante and finale, finding new nuances and phrasings the 2d time round. Clocking in at 16 minutes, the Andante emerges more than twice as long equally the showtime motion. Britten justifies the proportions. The Minuet is brusque and bristling, with disruptive explosions on held loftier notes: illicit, peradventure, but all of a piece with Britten's conception.
While Britten is no slouch, Yehudi Menuhin, with the Sinfonia Varsovia, is faster and leaner in each movement. By 1989 the period-musical instrument move was in total spate. Menuhin's determinedly anti-Romantic formulation, gamely executed past the Smooth ring, taps into the spirit of the age. In the first-movement development, impetuosity can threaten rhythmic poise. Merely each movement, including a naturally flowing Andante (where Menuhin reveals himself master of the lyrical line) and a muscular, one-in-a-bar Minuet, has an urgent, inevitable sweep.
2 more than recent recordings combine a Romantic impulse with menstruum-functioning practice: a matrimony of convenience that more than often than non works. With a slimmed-down (or so information technology sounds) Berlin Combo, playing with low-cal bow strokes and minimal vibrato, Simon Rattle chooses consistently swift tempos. Until the trigger-happy key outburst, the Andante is an airborne dance with an underlying minuet lilt, while the Minuet proper becomes a no-holds-barred scherzo, divided violins locked in combat. Textures are ideally transparent throughout. Rattle's Romantic instincts are evident in, say, the contemplative slowing into the first movement's recapitulation and the all-passion-spent handling of the second subject field. The recasting of the finale's lyrical second theme in K modest becomes a nostalgic envoi, à la Bruno Walter.
Taking all possible repeats – including both in the Andante – John Nelson directs the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris in another eager, up-tempo performance, less driven in the Minuet and disinclined to linger in the Allegros' pools of lyricism. The Gallic horns are a tangy presence in the pastoral Trio. Nelson is unflinching in Mozart's tearing contrapuntal developments, enhanced by keening current of air. A pity that he fails to divide his violins left and right, every bit Mozart's writing demands.
ENTER THE Menses BRIGADE
After early sallies from Christopher Hogwood et al, by the 1990s performances on menstruum instruments (gut strings, valveless horns, woodwind with an agreeable 'edge') had become the norm. Roger Norrington, conducting the London Classical Players, starts as he means to get on, with a fast, tense Molto allegro underpinned by agitatissimo divided violas. From the wailing oboes and bassoons on the theme'south echo, Norrington seizes every opportunity to stress the dissonant potential of the unblended period woodwind. The conductor has his own ideas on articulation and accentuation; and at his blithe tempo the piddling 'flicking' figures that pepper the Andante become charmingly decorative – a preview here of the blusterous trio for the Three Boys in Act ii of Die Zauberflöte.
Released at the same time as Norrington's version (despite having been recorded ii years earlier), John Eliot Gardiner directs an equally peppery but more 'central' performance founded on a larger (or so it sounds) body of strings. Both conductors generate a fine fury in the developments of the two Allegros, propelled past splenetic divided violins. I love the manner Gardiner encourages the horns to permit rip in the offset movement's recapitulation. Differences between the 2 conductors are sharpest in the middle movements. At 13'53" to Norrington'southward 12'08" (including both repeats), Gardiner'south Andante has breadth and gravitas. Similarly, while Norrington's third movement, foreshadowing Rattle'due south, becomes an incontinent scherzo, Gardiner's exudes a defiant toughness. There's room for both.
Trevor Pinnock, with The English language Concert, is hardly less fiery in the outer movements but allows more room for lyrical grace. This is a natural, unaffected performance, combining light, precise articulation with a intendance for the singing line and inner detail. There are no quirks, no exaggerations. Phrases e'er breathe. The Andante, shaped with gentle flexibility, and the Trio take a bedroom-musical intimacy, with the players listening attentively and responding to each other.
Like Norrington's, Pinnock's ensemble numbers around 35. Nosotros know that Mozart relished larger forces when he could get them. Then we can estimate he would accept canonical of Marc Minkowski'southward band, based on 12, rather than eight, first violins. More than the three fine British catamenia performances, Minkowski tends to get for extremes, whether in the ultra-fragile pianissimos in the Andante (rather touching) or the dissimilarity betwixt the frenetic Minuet-scherzo and the slower, lovingly phrased Trio. The symphony opens with subdued tension at the fastest possible tempo; later on an added pause Minkowski slows for the 2nd theme, and so tears into the development. It'south exciting, but can get a bit of a scramble.
From the barely controlled impetuosity of the opening, René Jacobs's functioning with the superlative Freiburg Baroque Orchestra as well mines extremes of ferocity and delicacy. He goes further than Minkowski in his tempo tweaks, whether lingering at the opening of the starting time move's development or globe-trotting into reverie before the return of the Andante's main theme. Jacobs observes all possible repeats, and, crucially, uses them to further the symphonic drama. His idiosyncrasies can illuminate or (say, in the sudden unprovoked forte on the repeat of the Trio) irritate, according to taste. But there is no hint of routine. If you want a demonstration that Mozart's instrumental music is opera by other means, hither it is.
Like Pinnock, Frans Brüggen, 2010 vintage, combines expressive phrasing with minimal flexing of the pulse. While not quite immaculate, the playing of his Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century is always live, full of individual nuances and colours. The flute-led woodwind scream out against the rebarbative string counterpoint in the finale's development – a thrilling moment. Mystifyingly, though, Brüggen ditches both repeats here and in the easily paced Andante.
A smaller-calibration Dutch period performance, from Jos van Immerseel's Anima Eterna in 2001 (Zig-Zag/Alpha, ix/04), is the fastest and straightest of all, sticking sedulously to the letter of the score. Stravinsky, you suspect, would have canonical. In extreme contrast are Riccardo Minasi and Ensemble Resonanz. Cultivating a notably annoying sound world, Minasi eclipses fifty-fifty Jacobs in wilful subjectivity. He vindicates his manic tempo in the finale. Only the first movement, replete with added dynamics, veers between febrile activity and exhaustion, while the Andante has barely iv confined in the aforementioned tempo.
'Hungry' was my instant reaction to the opening movement from Nikolaus Harnconcourt, in his 2d recording with the Concentus Musicus Wien. Familiar Harnoncourtisms – tempo distensions, added pauses – abound. Speed choices are provocative. The Andante, quicker even than Norrington'due south, opens every bit an ethereal dance, then generates an unmatched vehemence in the central development. Ricocheting antiphonal violins spit venom in the Minuet, taken at the breakneck speed suggested by Czerny's metronome marking, while the Trio brings out the closet Romantic in Harnoncourt. In the finale, the conductor takes a surprisingly moderate view of the Allegro assai, caressing the 2nd theme, then building inexorably through the development. The pungent timbres of the wind, raucous horns to the fore, are gloriously present. For all its hesitations and rhetorical emphases – emulated in varying degrees by later on period practitioners – Harnoncourt'southward operation is unsurpassed for colour and cumulative intensity.
THE FINAL Choose
Amid period recordings, Pinnock, Gardiner, Norrington and the more subjective Jacobs and Harnoncourt all have potent claims. For inspired intuition, Britten and Furtwängler are in a form of their ain. Yet forced to nominate a top library choice for the M small-scale Symphony, equally the rules dictate, I'd plump for Charles Mackerras and the fabulous Scottish Chamber Orchestra: mod instruments (except for valveless horns) played with a discriminating sensation of period practice, and recorded in the clear even so glowing acoustic of Glasgow'south Metropolis Halls.
Mackerras with the Scottish CO: expressive phrasing, transparent textures and urgent tempos (Chris Christodoulou/Bridgeman Images)
Mackerras's tempos – quick yet never hectic – seem spot on, his rhythms, founded on a superbly articulate bass line, taut and vital. The beginning movement marries urgency and lyrical eloquence, while in the flowing Andante the conductor is especially alive to the moments of harmonic mystery and the conversations inside the inner voices. The finale ideally balances ferocity and pathos, with just a hint of sorrowful lingering when the minor cardinal returns earlier the close.
The G minor Symphony was doubtless 1 of the works the early on 19th-century critic Friedrich Rochlitz had in mind when he wrote that Mozart's 'modulations are ofttimes bizarre, his transitions rough … rarely is he frail without emitting tense, painful sighs'. This is a verdict that would accept astonished earlier generations, though evidently not Furtwängler. Locating the symphony's dark, disturbing heart, the finest modern interpreters, Harnoncourt and Mackerras among them, would surely concur.
This article originally appeared in the Feb 2022 issue of Gramophone mag. Never miss an consequence – subscribe today
Source: https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/mozart-s-symphony-no-40-a-deep-dive-into-the-best-recordings
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