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Symphonic form today has evolved far from its original use as a description of an
orchestral piece, self contained and preceding or played during a piece of choral
music. The greatest development of the modern symphony took place during the
nineteenth century, specifically after the ground breaking nature of Beethoven's
"Choral" or ninth symphony where the composer united the purely orchestral
opening three movements with a choral finale, paving the way for such hybrid works
as Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang" symphony/cantata and Mahler's "Symphony of a
Thousand". Equally, although the classical symphony is associated with a four
movement plan and an opening movement in sonata form, later works have varied
from a single movement such as Sibelius' Seventh symphony to a multi movement
and loose structure such as Messiaen's "Turangalila".
Some of the earliest recognisable and independent symphonies came from the pens
of Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1701-1775) who composed over seventy works in
Milan in the Baroque style and in the 1780's and 90's from the Lucca born Luigi
Boccherini who composed nearly thirty of his own symphonies. Meanwhile, in
Austria,Mathias Monn (1717-1750) was writing string symphonies and a D major
symphony, exceptionally scored for an orchestra of violins, cellos, basses and flutes,
horn and bassoon. Already the convention of a work merely for strings had been
broken and the symphony orchestra had begun to grow. Monn headed a new
generation of symphonic composers in Austria which included Gassmann (1729-
1774), Hofmann (1738-1793) and Dittersdorf (1739-1799). A major influence too on
both Haydn and Mozart was the so called "Mannheim School", a group of musicians
under the patronage of the Elector of that city, Carl Theodor, who formed the finest
orchestra of the day and encouraged his composers to experiment with orchestral
sonorities. The composers of the Court included Stamitz, Richter and Holzbauer.
By 1764, when Mozart produced his first symphony in London (KV16), the form had
taken hold across northern Europe. Gone was the operatic conventional three part
overture and the symphony had become an independent orchestral piece. Most
important of all, the symphony had found favour in the hands of Joseph Haydn who
had already embarked on his great series of one hundred and four works. It was
therefore natural that the young Mozart should begin to compose (or adapt) to
examples of the work.
The symphony at this stage was still basically a three movement work as the previous
operatic sinfonia had been and indeed as the concerto was to remain for some time.
That structure was a ternary and balanced composition opening and closing with fast
movements and with a central point of repose in an Andante - it is not until some
time later that Mozart, like Haydn would move to a four movement form including a
minuet as a third movement within the piece, although the Austrian composer
Mathias Georg Monn had already tried this formula as early as 1740.
The Mozarts arrived in London after a stay in Paris, in 1764 and settled in Ebury
Street in Chelsea. Young Wolfgang's first symphony was KV16 in E flat major
composed when he was only eight years old which was played originally at a concert
in the Haymarket in February 1765 together with other symphonies by the composer.
These early works are influenced by the Viennese and Italian schools as well as that of
Johann Christian Bach and take their effect from the contrasts between forte and
piano dynamics - a style which was to remain typically Mozartian throughout all his
works even up to the final "Jupiter" Symphony. The style of the "opera buffa"
overture was to predominate in all of these early works right up to KV74.
The Symphony KV19a is only a recent discovery and was found to be copied out by
Mozart's father Leopold on French paper which could suggest that it was written on
paper taken by the family from Paris or that it was perhaps a later composition
written after their departure from London, although the title page states it was
written by Mozart at the age of nine. Although J C Bach was an obvious influence on
these early works,Mozart had also fallen under the spell of Carl Friedrich Abel and
the symphony originally known as KV18 was later found to be by Abel himself. The
Mozarts left London for the Hague and it was there that the B flat symphony KV 22
had its first performance. By the time of KV43 and KV45,Mozart had begun writing
the four movement works that would be the typical form of both his and his great
mentor, Haydn's later works - the latter was also to be used as an overture to his early
opera "La Finta semplice".
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