How many symphonies did Mozart write?
Did you know ... that the question ‘How many symphonies did Mozart write?’ is not an easy one to answer. One thing is for certain, and that is that the answer is not ‘41’. Read on ...
This month [June 2001] AAM performs Mozart’s last three symphonies on its tour of Korea and Japan, commonly known as numbers 39, 40 and 41. They were indeed his last three symphonies, but musical history is littered with examples of misleading editorial numbering of works. Consider the fact that many were brought up thinking that Dvorak’s New World Symphony was No.5 and we now know it as No.9, or consider that the discovery of two extra Bruckner symphonies requires them to be known as No.0 and No.00, to precede No.1. Well, we have that problem and more with Mozart.
One of the major recording landmarks in the last twenty-five years has been AAM’s recording of the complete set of Mozart’s symphonies (Decca 452 496–2, on 19 CDs) . This became a voyage of musicological discovery, and by the end of the process no fewer than 71 symphonies were recorded.
Let’s now unpick that number of 71:
Firstly, that number can be reduced to 68, since 3 of the symphonies are recorded twice, in their original and their revised versions, namely No. 31 (Paris), No. 35 (Haffner) and No. 40 (Great G minor).
Next we look at the numbers the more familiar symphonies are generally known by. The standard numbering of 1–41 was created in the nineteenth century by the Leipzig publishers Breitkopf & Hartel, basically in the correct chronological order, though with a few errors. This set was issued between 1879 and 1882. When fourteen additional symphonies were discovered and published between 1881 and 1910, they attracted the numbering 42–55, despite being early works.
To complicate matters, it is now thought that Nos. 2, 3, 48, 49, 51, 52 and 53 are not by Mozart, and AAM did not record these (although No.37 — in fact by Michael Haydn — is included in the version with a slow introduction by Mozart himself). So of the 55 ‘standard’ Mozart symphonies, we recorded 48.
So what about the 20 extra — unnumbered – symphonies that we recorded? That question allows us to take a tangent down the path of the definition of a ‘symphony’. The nineteenth century (Romantic) concept of the symphony was a grand, serious work of some substance — in terms of both length and forces — and this is highlighted neatly by the number of Romantic composers that managed only nine or fewer symphonies (e.g. Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann) in comparison to the Haydns and Mozarts of the 18th century.
The standard symphony also came to have four movements, but in the earlier classical period three was the norm. Indeed it was during Mozart’s life that the Minuet & Trio became a common addition to the symphonic form, coming after the Andante and before the Finale. So many of Mozart’s earlier symphonies were three-movement works, and as well as being shorter than the Romantic notion of the genre, they were also less ‘substantial’ in other respects. Synonymous with terms such as ‘sinfonia’ and ‘overture’, they were often intended to be charming or witty rather than learned or profound, and would be used as curtain-raisers to plays, operas, cantatas, oratorios or concerts generally — and sometimes even in church. But symphonies certainly did not form the centre-piece of an evening’s musical performance as became the case in the Romantic period and subsequently.
Further investigation of these 20 unnumbered symphonies shows that they have a variety of provenances, such as opera overtures (e.g. Mitridate, re di Ponto, La finta semplice, Il sogno di Scipione), overtures to the stage works of others such as Pluicke and Bianchi, or as serenades (including the Posthorn Serenade K320). Mozart often added a specially written finale to operatic overtures (fast — slow) to create a symphony out of a piece that would originally have led directly into the first scene of an opera.
So once again, as is common in this ‘Did you know ...?’ section, the answer is not much clearer, but the question certainly is! So think of us in Japan, not knowing whether we are playing Mozart 39/40/41, or Mozart 66/67/68, or Mozart n/n+1/n+2...
The AAM recording project benefited from the advice of Neal Zaslaw, whose book on the subject is warmly recommended for further reading: Mozart’s Symphonies: Context, Performance Practice, Reception (Oxford, 1989). Alternatively, there are extensive notes in the booklet which accompanies the AAM recording for Decca 452 496–2.