Symphony No. 40 (Mozart) - The Music

The Music

The symphony is scored (in its revised version) for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings. Notably missing are trumpets and timpani.

The work is in four movements, in the usual arrangement (fast movement, slow movement, minuet, fast movement) for a classical-style symphony:

1. Molto allegro, 2/2
2. Andante, 6/8
3. Menuetto. Allegretto – Trio, 3/4
4. Finale. Allegro assai, 2/2

Every movement but the third is in sonata form; the minuet and trio are in the usual ternary form.

The first movement begins darkly, not with its first theme but with accompaniment, played by the lower strings with divided violas. The technique of beginning a work with an accompaniment figure was later used by Mozart in his final piano concerto (KV. 595) and later became a favorite of the Romantics (examples include the openings of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto).

The first theme is well known:

The second movement is a lyrical work in 6/8 time, in E flat major, the submediant major of the overall G minor key of the symphony.

The minuet begins with an angry, cross-accented hemiola rhythm and a pair of three-bar phrases; various commentators have asserted that while the music is labeled "minuet," it would hardly be suitable for dancing. The contrasting gentle trio section, in G major, alternates the playing of the string section with that of the winds.

The fourth movement opens with a series of rapidly ascending notes outlining the tonic triad illustrating what is commonly referred to as the Mannheim rocket. The movement is written largely in eight-bar phrases, following the general tendency toward rhythmic squareness in the finales of classical-era symphonies. A remarkable modulating passage, which strongly destabilizes the key, occurs at the beginning of the development section, in which every tone but one in the chromatic scale is played. The single note left out is in fact a g-natural (the tonic).