Symphony No. 35 (Mozart)
Encyclopedia
Symphony No. 35 in D major
D major
D major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature consists of two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor....

, K.
Köchel-Verzeichnis
The Köchel-Verzeichnis is a complete, chronological catalogue of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart which was originally created by Ludwig von Köchel. It is abbreviated K or KV. For example, Mozart's Requiem in D minor was, according to Köchel's counting, the 626th piece Mozart composed....

 385, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 in 1782 and is also called the Haffner Symphony. It was commissioned by the Haffners, a prominent Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...

 family, for the occasion of Sigmund Haffner's ennoblement. The Haffner Symphony should not be confused with the eight-movement Haffner Serenade, another piece Mozart wrote on commission from the same family in 1776.

Background

The Haffner Symphony did not start its life as a symphony, but rather as a serenade to be used as background music for the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner. The Mozarts knew the Haffners through Sigmund Haffner's father, also Sigmund Haffner, who had been mayor of Salzburg and who had helped them out on their early tours of Europe. The elder Haffner died in 1772, but the families remained in contact. In 1776, the younger Haffner commissioned a serenade for the wedding of Marie Elizabeth Haffner to Franz Xavier Spath. This work became the famous Haffner Serenade
Serenade No. 7 (Mozart)
Serenade for orchestra in D major, K. 250, popularly known as the Haffner Serenade, is a serenade by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart named for the Haffner family. Mozart's friend and contemporary Sigmund Haffner the Younger commissioned the serenade to be used in the course of the festivities before the...

 which was so successful that, when the younger Sigmund Haffner was to be ennobled, it was only natural that Mozart was called upon to write the music for the occasion. The request to write music actually came via Mozart's father on 20 July 1782 when Mozart had no spare time. Mozart was "up to his eyeballs with work". Not only was he teaching, but he also had to rearrange the score in his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...

before July 28. In addition to these demands, his proposed marriage to Constanze Weber was threatened by a number of complications, including moving to a house on the Hohe Brücke in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. Nevertheless, Mozart worked on the music, and sent it through section by section to his father. What Mozart wrote at this time was a new serenade - a completely different work from the serenade presented four years earlier - with an introductory march and two minuets. According to historical evidence, it is quite possible that Mozart did not actually meet his father's deadline to have the music completed by Sigmund Haffner's ennoblement. As shall be seen in the following discussion, Mozart later reworked this music into what we now know as the Haffner Symphony.

At the end of December 1782, Mozart decided to present music from the new Haffner serenade at a concert. After asking his father to send the score of the serenade back again, Mozart was amazed at its quality, given the fact that it was composed in so short a time. He set to work to make a number of alterations to the score in order to convert the new Haffner serenade into the Haffner symphony. These alterations included dropping the introductory march (K. 385a) and one of the minuets. In addition, the repeat signs were removed from the end of the first movement's exposition. Mozart also gave the Haffner Symphony a fuller sound by adding two flutes and two clarinets to the woodwind section of the first and last movements. These added woodwind parts are not new melodic material, but simply a doubling of octaves with the woodwinds.

The Haffner Symphony, as we know it today, received its first performance on March 23, 1783 at the Vienna Burgtheater. At the concert, Mozart opened matters with the first three movements of this symphony, an aria from Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...

 (described in his letter to his father of March 29 that year as his Munich opera), a piano concerto, a scena (a genre related to the concert aria), the concertante movements of one of his recent serenades, his piano concerto K. 175
Piano Concerto No. 5 (Mozart)
Piano Concerto No. 5 in D major, K. 175, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1773, at the age of 17. It is Mozart's first fully original piano concerto; his previous efforts were based on works by other composers.-Instrumentation:...

 (with a new finale)— and another scena (from an opera he'd composed for Milan); at this point he improvised a fugue "because the Emperor was present" and then two sets of variations (K. 398 on an aria by Paisiello and K. 455 on an aria by Gluck). After this, Madame (Aloysia) Lange sang his new rondo (K. 416?) and then to finish the concert, the last movement of the Haffner Symphony.

The performance of the Haffner Symphony at this concert, nonetheless, proved very successful. Cuyler (1995) classifies the Haffner, the Linz
Symphony No. 36 (Mozart)
The Symphony No. 36 in C major, KV 425, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart during a stopover in the Austrian town of Linz on his and his wife's way back home to Vienna from Salzburg in late 1783. The entire symphony was written in four days to accommodate the local count's announcement, upon...

 (No. 36) and the Prague
Symphony No. 38 (Mozart)
The Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in late 1786. It was premiered in Prague on January 19, 1787, a few weeks after Le nozze di Figaro opened there. It is popularly known as the Prague Symphony...

  (No. 38) symphonies, as "three symphonies that transcend all his former symphonic works."

The autograph manuscript currently resides in the archives of the Pierpont-Morgan Library in New York City.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for 2 flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, 2 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, 2 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s in A, 2 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s, 2 horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

s in D and G, 2 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s in D, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

, and string
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...

s.

The key

Mozart's choice of key for the Haffner Symphony is an aspect that catches one's attention. According to Cuyler, "the key of D major, which was so felicitous for the winds, served Mozart more often than any other key, even C, for his symphonies," including the Paris
Symphony No. 31 (Mozart)
The Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 297/300a, better known as the Paris Symphony, is one of the more famous symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-Composition and premiere:...

 (No. 31) and Prague
Symphony No. 38 (Mozart)
The Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in late 1786. It was premiered in Prague on January 19, 1787, a few weeks after Le nozze di Figaro opened there. It is popularly known as the Prague Symphony...

 (No. 38) symphonies. The key is also indicative of the work's serenade origins as all of Mozart's orchestral serenades are scored in D major. Hence, it is not surprising that the Haffner Symphony was written in the key of D major.

Movements

The symphony is in four movements
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

:
  1. Allegro con spirito, 4/4
  2. Andante, 2/4
  3. Menuetto
    Minuet
    A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...

    , 3/4
  4. Presto, 2/2

I. Allegro con spirito

When communicating with his father Leopold, Mozart stated that this movement was to be played with fire. The movement is in sonata form
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

 with a short development section. The exposition commences with no introduction with all instruments in unison, this opening motive is quite powerful - the result of cleverly using sharp dotted rhythms to arrest the listener's attention. The second subject is similar in melodic material and rhythm to the first subject, recalling the monothematic sonata movements of Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

 (e.g. Symphony No. 104
Symphony No. 104 (Haydn)
The Symphony No. 104 in D major is Joseph Haydn's final symphony. It is the last of the twelve so-called London Symphonies, and is known as the London Symphony....

).

Interestingly, Mozart places no repeat signs at the end of the exposition
Exposition (music)
In musical form and analysis, exposition is the initial presentation of the thematic material of a musical composition, movement, or section. The use of the term generally implies that the material will be developed or varied....

. This goes against the standard sonata form convention of the day, but is something that he also does in the three big symphonies which precede the Haffner (No's. 31
Symphony No. 31 (Mozart)
The Symphony No. 31 in D major, K. 297/300a, better known as the Paris Symphony, is one of the more famous symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-Composition and premiere:...

, 33
Symphony No. 33 (Mozart)
The Symphony No. 33 in B flat major, K. 319, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and dated on 9 July 1779.-Structure:The symphony has four movements:#Allegro assai, 3/4#Andante moderato, 2/4#Menuetto, 3/4#Finale: Allegro assai, 2/4...

 and 34
Symphony No. 34 (Mozart)
Symphony No. 34 in C Major, K. 338, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1780, and completed on August 29.The work is scored for 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings....

).

The development begins with an A unison as a transition from A major to D minor (bars 95-104. After three beats silence, Mozart shifts from the dominant of D minor to an F chord, and then begins a series of rapid chord changes, namely - F7 (bar 106), B (bar 109), B minor (bar 110), C7 (bar 110). Finally, using C7 as the dominant for F minor, Mozart briefly delves in this key (bars 111-120) before using a string of consecutive dominant 7ths (bars 120-129) to work back to the dominant 7th of D major in preparation for the recapitulation. The recapitulation is similar to the exposition with the exception of expected differences in the transition passage. This movement closes with a short four-bar coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...

.

II. Andante

The G major
G major
G major is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp, F; in treble-clef key signatures, the sharp-symbol for F is usually placed on the first line from the top, though in some Baroque music it is placed on the first space from the bottom...

 second movement provides a welcome relief with its slow, graceful melodies announced by the woodwind section. The movement is in an abridged sonata form. Instead of a development, a brief chorale
Chorale
A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....

-like passage is presented by the woodwinds. The rhythmic structures of the first subject theme and the second subject theme provide a subtle, but excellent contrast to each other. Whilst both themes are quite similar in character, the first subject theme has a slow-moving accompaniment based upon sixteenth notes, whereas the second subject theme has a busier accompaniment of thirty-second notes. The brief, chorale-like passage which replaces the development is clearly punctuated by the use of syncopated accompaniment by the violins and violas. This movement has been summarized by some as being delicate and elaborate, but definitely relaxing.

III. Menuetto

The D major
D major
D major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature consists of two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor....

 minuet provides a bright change of atmosphere from the previous slow, serious "Andante" movement. One may notice when listening to this movement the constant tug between two main chords - the tonic and dominant keys. Only three times do we see chords other than the tonic or dominant.

Also notable is that the dynamics for the whole "Menuetto" is marked forte. However, in both instances where chord IV and vi appear, Mozart marked these sections piano. These changes produce a pleasant contrast, both melodically and dynamically.

Leading straight on from the "Menuetto", the "Trio" provides a complement to the character of this "Menuetto". As indicated by Mozart in the score, the "Trio" immediately follows the "Menuetto" without a moment of silence. Stepping up into the key of A major, it soon becomes apparent that the "Trio" is also in Ternary form, like the "Menuetto". One may note the fact that no sections of the "Trio" are marked as forte. All is marked as piano, with the exception of bars 33 - 36, and 43 - 44, where Mozart has indicated a small crescendo. Perhaps to supplement the fact of any clear contrast in dynamics, Mozart has freely used sforzando
Sforzando
Sforzando may refer to:*Sforzando, used in musical notation as an instruction to play a note with sudden, strong emphasis *Sforzando , a "pirate orchestra" from Melbourne, Australia, named after the musical term...

s throughout the "Trio". The same type of suspense and resolution is present in the "Trio" as that found in the "Menuetto". In fact, Mozart takes a step further in the "Trio" by adding a pedal note on the dominant. This dominant pedal then subtly slips back into the tonic by means of a chromatic B sharp. When comparing the character of the "Menuetto" with that of the "Trio", a number of individual "personalities" are apparent. The "Menuetto" is brighter and lighter; whereas the "Trio" creates a more flowing effect. Also notable is that Mozart used chromaticism freely in the "Trio", but limited its use within the "Menuetto".

IV. Presto

The last movement, labeled "Presto", maintains just as much fire as the first movement. According to Steinberg, and Ledbetter, this "Presto" movement not only bears a similar atmosphere to the Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro, but also provides a reminiscence of Osmin's comic aria "O wie will ich triumphieren" from Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...

. Interestingly, this opera was first performed just two weeks before the composition of this finale. Hence, it may explain why there exist such similarities. When providing his father, Leopold, with performance instructions for the "Presto", his advice was that this movement should be played "as fast as possible". Although the "Presto" begins at a quiet, brisk pace, the listener is immediately arrested by three beats of silence, followed by the full orchestra performing at a clear forte level in bar 9. Such musical surprises appear throughout this movement. Like the first movement, this movement is in the key of D major, and the form of the "Presto" movement is clearly in sonata form. Permeated with silences, rapid dynamic shifts, and a bright grace-note passage near the closing of the movement, one may expect the unexpected.

Length

The Haffner Symphony usually runs somewhere around 20 minutes in length. A recording by George Szell
George Szell
George Szell , originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer...

 with the Cleveland Orchestra
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...

 (Sony SBK 46333) runs 19:11; one by Iona Brown
Iona Brown
Iona Brown, OBE was a British violinist and conductor.Elizabeth Iona Brown was born in Salisbury. Her parents Antony and Fiona were both musicians...

 with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is an English chamber orchestra, based in London.Sir Neville Marriner founded the ensemble as The Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields in London as a small, conductorless string group. The ensemble's name comes from Trafalgar Square's St Martin-in-the-Fields...

 (Haenssler CD 94.003) is 21:09; and one by Sir Neville Marriner
Neville Marriner
Sir Neville Marriner is an English conductor and violinist.-Biography:Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Martin String Quartet and London Symphony Orchestra, playing with the...

also with the same ensemble (Philips 420 486-2) runs 21:34.

External links

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