# Symphony in 4 days



## poconoron (Oct 26, 2011)

It is apparently a generally accepted fact that Mozart wrote his Linz Symphony K425 in just 4 days. I have read that even a good music copyist would be challenged to merely COPY the score in this time frame. Musicologist Volker Scherliess has stated that "_the work is in a higher sense complete, indeed perfect. At no time do we find any signs of haste, superficiality or mere routine; it is a splendid achievement , polished down to the smallest detail._"

This symphony, along with the 4 great ones which follow it, give us just a small inkling of what a Mozart of 57 (age of Beethoven's death), or a Mozart of 64 (age of Brahm's death) might have achieved. Tragically, we know he only made it to age 35.

Any other legendary feats that anyone here is aware of?


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Bach had Contrapunctus XIV figured out in his head before he even started writing down Contrapunctus I.

Fascinating, no?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I think all of the masterpieces we know and love are legendary feats in and of themselves. I try not to get distracted by anecdotes about how a composer wrote the works, or how quickly, even if those anecdotes are true. I think they are extraneous to an appreciation of the greatness of the music. It's just another way of saying in awe, "OMFG, how did they do it?!" but I think we have enough "OMFG?!" looking at works like Brahms's 1st Symphony which was in the boiler for years. It's all beyond our understanding and abilities.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

The classic speed achievement is Handel finishing Messiah in 24 days. Okay, he nicked a little bit from earlier material and it still needed fine tuning, but writing two and a half hours of such consistently brilliant and cohesive music in such a complex structure in three and a half weeks is _impressive_.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Look here and read about symphony no. 4 and symphony no. 5.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

And some of these were written in several hours.


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## smoledman (Feb 6, 2012)

I have a hard time believing it took 4 days from the time he initially was composing it in his head to writing down the last note. More like he had been composing it in his mind for several months and it took 4 days to write it down(an impressive feat in itself).


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

All very well CoAG but I havent read quotes like this in relation to your work:

"_the work is in a higher sense complete, indeed perfect. At no time do we find any signs of haste, superficiality or mere routine; it is a splendid achievement , polished down to the smallest detail._"

Is there somehow we could hear the pieces you mentioned?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

emiellucifuge said:


> All very well CoAG but I havent read quotes like this in relation to your work:
> 
> "_the work is in a higher sense complete, indeed perfect. At no time do we find any signs of haste, superficiality or mere routine; it is a splendid achievement , polished down to the smallest detail._"
> 
> Is there somehow we could hear the pieces you mentioned?


No, sorry. But my piano quintet (even though it's hardly a long piece) is the quickest to compose piece that you can listen to on soundcloud (see link in signature)

But with those other pieces I mentioned I think that there are definitely signs of haste in them (about as much as Vivaldi's concerto for two violins RV519)


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

smoledman said:


> I have a hard time believing it took 4 days from the time he initially was composing it in his head to writing down the last note. More like he had been composing it in his mind for several months and it took 4 days to write it down(an impressive feat in itself).


I'm sure he would have assembled ideas he had already created and worked on in his head.
Also, it is highly likely he wrote down the symphony in short score, ie no more than four staves (or posibly even just a piano reduction) with text indications of instrumentation.


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

The _Linz _symphony isdefinitely an unparalleled achievement! There are, however, a pair of 20th century works that were composed in a relatively short time that need mention:

I discusssed in these pages the Menotti television opera _Amahl and the Night Visitors_, which was composed in under 6 weeks (I believe), from first note to full production!
http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/440-day-music-history-24.html

There's also the composition of Gershwin's _Rhapsody in Blue_, which - as the legend goes - was a commitment Gershwin forgot completely about, and he wrote the 2-piano version (orchestrated in treal-time by Ferde Grofe) in under a month, with indications "wait for my nod" on the score...


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

But... I've never really liked the _Linz _ symphony. I think the amount of work a composer put into a composition usually shows, even in Mozart's case. We know he put a lot of work into the _Haydn _ string quartets, for example. I can hear it when listening to some of them.


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## poconoron (Oct 26, 2011)

jalex said:


> The classic speed achievement is Handel finishing Messiah in 24 days. Okay, he nicked a little bit from earlier material and it still needed fine tuning, but writing two and a half hours of such consistently brilliant and cohesive music in such a complex structure in three and a half weeks is _impressive_.


I was not aware of that achievement........... extremely impressive indeed!


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## TrazomGangflow (Sep 9, 2011)

Mozart had to do something to be one of the most well known and greatest composers in history.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Dodecaplex said:


> Bach had Contrapunctus XIV figured out in his head before he even started writing down Contrapunctus I.
> 
> Fascinating, no?


I want an extrapolation of this please.


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## smoledman (Feb 6, 2012)

Mozart's pre-Vienna compositions are mostly forgettable with the exception of Symphonies 25, 29 and some of the piano sonatas.


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

Isn't the _Linz_ from after he moved to Vienna?


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> And some of these were written in several hours.


write a fugue and i'll put you in the tcfi


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Webernite said:


> Isn't the _Linz_ from after he moved to Vienna?


Indeed. The increase in ambition correlates with the move to Vienna and the changing role of the symphony at the time; the youthful style wouldn't cut it any more. I guess the Linz is in a way Mozart's equivalent of Beethoven's 28th piano sonata.



smoledman said:


> Mozart's pre-Vienna compositions are mostly forgettable with the exception of Symphonies 25, 29 and some of the piano sonatas.


Piano concerto #9? Probably there are a few more, I don't know many dates for his works.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I think his violin concertos 3-5 qualify as non-forgettable pre-Vienna works.

They do for me anyway....


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

I like the story of Rossini being locked in his room by the producer of La Gazza Ladra the day before the first performance because he hadn't written the overture yet. He passed the pages out of the window where his copyists wrote out the full orchestral parts. Rossini wrote music pretty quickly in general (although he did reuse a lot) - 37 operas by the time he was 37, plus non-operatic works besides.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Philip said:


> write a fugue and i'll put you in the tcfi


Violin concerto no. 2 has a fugal finale. I have written five keyboard fugues, a fugue for three recorders and a fugue for four oboes. My third and fourth symphonies each have a fugal movement in them and the last movement of my first piano sonata has two fugal sections within it. Oh, and the second movement of my piano quintet is a fugue as will be the third movement of my sixth symphony. Finally, the prelude from my suite for guitar and violin has an extended fugal section.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

This, from a fourteen year-old boy who heard, once, the Allegri miserere -- a ten + minute long polyphonic work in six voices -- who then went home and wrote it out from memory, and then continued to compose daily, to a total of over six hundred works within less than thirty five years, is a surprise? 





Camille Saint-Saëns gave his debut full-length piano recital: the program was the Mozart Concerto No. 15 K.450, pieces by Bach, Handel, Hummel and Kalkbrenner. When called upon to play an encore, he offered to play any of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas from memory.

Saint-Saëns was twelve years old at the time....


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## poconoron (Oct 26, 2011)

smoledman said:


> Mozart's pre-Vienna compositions are mostly forgettable with the exception of Symphonies 25, 29 and some of the piano sonatas.


That is a misconception.
There is no question that the bulk of Mozart's truly great music was composed during the Vienna years 1781-1791. But prior to that as a teenager and very young man in his early 20s he composed a number of works generally regarded as very high quality and masterpieces. We would be hard-pressed to find _any other_ composer who did likewise, and in fact, find anyone who achieved anything close to what Mozart achieved by 35 years of age when he died.

So I would disagree that they are "forgettable" - perhaps only a fair number of the _very early_ compositions (of a child and teenager) can be said to fall into that category.

In addition to the ones you noted, here is just a partial list of the noteworthy ones:

K364 Sinfonia concertante from 1779 Salzburg 
K271 Piano Concerto from 1777 Salzburg
K366 Opera Idomeneo from 1780 Salzburg,Munich
K317 Coronation Mass from 1779 Salzburg
3 Violin Concertos K216,218,219 from 1775 Salzburg
K297 Paris Symphony (31) from 1778
K250 Haffner Serenade from 1776 Salzburg
K329 Posthorn Serenade from 1779 Salzburg
K334 Divertimento from 1779 Salzburg
K313,314 Flute,Oboe Concertos from 1778 Salzburg
K191 Bassoon Concerto from 1774 Salzburg
K174 String Quintet from 1773 Salzburg
K165 Exsultate Jubilate vocal from 1773

Also a number of concert arias, divertimentos, serenades, chamber music, early operas and other pieces are generally acknowledged as not being very "forgettable."


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## Pestouille (Feb 21, 2012)

poconoron said:


> That is a misconception.
> There is no question that the bulk of Mozart's truly great music was composed during the Vienna years 1781-1791. But prior to that as a teenager and very young man in his early 20s he composed a number of works generally regarded as very high quality and masterpieces. We would be hard-pressed to find _any other_ composer who did likewise, and in fact, find anyone who achieved anything close to what Mozart achieved by 35 years of age when he died.
> 
> So I would disagree that they are "forgettable" - perhaps only a fair number of the _very early_ compositions (of a child and teenager) can be said to fall into that category.
> ...


Thanks for clearing the misconception of so called "Mature works", Mozart had different creative period (even young, not baby)... Mozart was a genius, not a gifted child... He had that faculty of memorizing enormous amount of music. For him composing was a very easy task, what took him time was writing down the music, which he hated. 
Though writing down a complete symphony in 4 days, in regard of the quality of his partitions, is by itself already a miracle.. The "exultate" was firstly executed in January 1773 in Milano, but written in 1772 (sources may vary). For the fun you could add his first quartet in G major dated from 1770...


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

I think Mozart's last 3 symphonies were composed between 8 weeks and 3 months. This is symphonic composition without equal. He was 32 at the time. And also writing other works in this period, to boot. I think at aged 32, Beethoven had 2 symphonies. Mozart was exceptionally quick, capable of writing-to-order, but even still, I imagine there were gestation periods where he'd keep ideas stored in his noggin but unused, until he had a commission.

However, the Linz, by any measure, is extraordinarily swift. I think he composed it on the coach journey to its first performance...


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