Behind the Musik: Mozart 40 & Schubert 5

Directed by Rachel Podger

Performances:
September 26–28, 2025 at Koerner Hall, TELUS Centre for Performing and Learning

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Program

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Program Notes

By Charlotte Nediger

In a period of just a few short weeks in 1788, Mozart composed three remarkable symphonies: no. 39 in E-Flat Major, no. 40 in G Minor, and no. 41 in C Major (“The Jupiter”). They were to be his final symphonies, and were apparently composed neither on commission, nor with any concrete plans for performance. It is possible that Mozart directed performances of the works during his travels to Prague, Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin, undertaken in search of renewed fame and fortune outside the confines of fickle Vienna. If Mozart’s fortunes looked bright during his first years in Vienna in the early 1780s, they had turned, and by 1788 Mozart was in serious debt.

The three symphonies are masterful works, widely contrasting, and together a comprehensive summary of the classical symphony. Of the three, the one that has drawn the most attention is the arresting Symphony no. 40. In 1793, two years after Mozart’s death, it was advertised by the Viennese music dealer Johann Traeg as “one of the last and most beautiful of this master.” The work was widely known and performed. Early 19th-century critics already described the symphony as “romantic,” and although it is a near-perfect exemplar of the classical style, it is also a deeply personal, original, and intense work. Much has been written about its significance as a link between musical classicism and romanticism. Zaslaw describes it as “perhaps even a mournful hint at what Mozart might have composed had he lived a normal lifespan.”

The symphony’s unusual quiet opening has been described by the Mozart scholar Neal Zaslaw as “an accompaniment waiting for a tune to accompany.” He goes on to point out that its essence can be heard again in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, and Bruckner symphonies. The slow movement is quoted by Haydn in his oratorio The Seasons. The quotation appears in the aria where winter is compared to old age, following the words “exhausted is the summer’s strength”—Haydn’s gesture a commemoration of the loss of his younger colleague as well as a reflection of the approaching end of his own career.

Franz Schubert made a copy of the Minuet and used it as a model for the G-Minor Minuet of his Fifth Symphony. The year was 1816, and the 19-year-old Schubert recounted hearing the performance of a Mozart quintet in his diary:

This bright, light, beautiful day will remain with me for the rest of my life. The magical tones of Mozart’s music still resound softly from afar. How incredibly powerful and yet so gentle it was, etched deep, deep in my heart by Schlesinger’s masterful playing. Thus do these beautiful imprints, which no time or circumstances can erase, and which have a beneficent effect on our very existence, remain in our souls. In the darkness of this life they show us a light, bright, beautiful distance for which we can hope with confidence. O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, oh how infinitely many such beneficent impressions of a brighter, better life have you imprinted on our souls.

Shortly after this entry Schubert sat down to write his Fifth Symphony, eschewing the clarinets, trumpets and timpani of his previous symphonies to match the orchestration of Mozart’s Symphony no. 40: flute, two oboes, two bassoons, and strings. In the pairing of these two works, classicism and romanticism meet: Mozart looks forward, Schubert looks back. The “magical tones of Mozart’s music” resounded not only in Schubert’s ear, but also in his score, and the symphony embodies the “light, clear, beautiful distance” which he so admired in Mozart’s work, and its promise of a “brighter, better life.”

As a palate cleanser between the two symphonies, Rachel Podger will play Mozart’s playful Rondo in B-flat Major. It is one of three single-movement works written for the concertmaster of the Salzburg court orchestra, Antonio Brunetti. This Rondo offers the violinist the opportunity to add their own creative wit in no fewer than three cadenzas. As librarian, I receive scores from the leaders that include markings for me to transfer to the players’ parts. These are mostly practical indications (e.g. the direction the string players move their bows), but Rachel sometimes adds descriptive words, and amongst her indications in the Rondo score are “sprightly,” “swing,” “friendly,” and “cheeky.” See if you hear those in our playing!

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