The Symphony

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 No. 29 in A major, K. 201/186a, was completed 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...

 on 6 April 1774

1774 in music

- Events :*Antonio Salieri is appointed court composer to the Emperor Joseph II.*Domenico Cimarosa is invited to Rome for the opera season.*Charles Burney writes A Plan for a Music School.*Pascal Taskin becomes keeper of the King's instruments....

. It is, along with Symphony No. 25

Symphony No. 25 (Mozart)

The Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183/173dB, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in October 1773, shortly after the success of his opera seria Lucio Silla. It was supposedly completed October 5, a mere two days after the completion of his Symphony No. 24, although this remains unsubstantiated...

, one of his better known early symphonies. Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie

Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...

 characterizes it as "a landmark ... personal in tone, indeed perhaps more individual in its combination of an intimate, chamber music style with a still fiery and impulsive manner."

Structure

The symphony follows classical

Classical period (music)

The dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or...

 form:

1. Allegro moderato, 2/2
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...
   
   : Allegretto – Trio
   Ternary form
   Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form, usually schematicized as A-B-A. The first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them...
   
   , 3/4
   Triple metre
   Triple metre is a musical metre characterized by a primary division of 3 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 3 or 9 in the upper figure of the time signature, with 3/4, 3/2, and 3/8 being the most common examples...
   
   
4. Allegro con spirito, 6/8

The first 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 graceful principal theme characterized by an octave drop and ambitious horn passages. The second movement is scored for muted strings with limited use of the winds, and is also in sonata form. The third movement, a minuet, is characterized by nervous dotted rhythms and staccato phrases; the trio provides a more graceful contrast. The energetic last movement, another sonata-form movement in 6/8 time

Meter (music)

Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...

, connects back to the first movement with its octave drop in the main theme.

External links

• BBC Discovering Music, and audio of that program (1 hour)