# mozart. symphony 25 and 40



## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

I am of the opinion that in some ways the 25 is superior to the 40. First of all superior in its first movement. In terms of musical sophistication and mastery of instrumentation the 40 is indeed the better but as a piece of absolute music which has no programmatic involvement the first movement of 25 is greater. The difference between these movements can find an analogy in the opening choruses of the bach st matthew and st john respectively. This seems a curious analogy but if the difference involves that between meditation and drama then it is appropriate since drama and meditation seperate the 25 and 40 of mozart. Despite the drive of 40 it is lesser in drama much like despite the constant beating of low E is the matthew. 40 and matthew are driven by ostinato rhythm. The john and 25 find drives using the same but also in the use of motifs which suggest torment and suffering.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

The playing of the individual movements in both symphonies vary a lot in recordings, also creating atmosphere in that way.

Here´s a very temperamental, dramatic 40 1st movement, for example - Adam Fischer & Danish National Radio SO:


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## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

joen_cph said:


> The playing of the individual movements in both symphonies vary a lot in recordings, also creating atmosphere in that way.
> 
> Here´s a very temperamental, dramatic 40 1st movement, for example - Adam Fischer & Danish National Radio SO:


Interpretation sways us from the music which is why I try to convey judgements of scores not interpretations.

If bach has a musical opposite I would suggest mahler because the matter which mahler uses to occupy space is disproportionate to that space.

I find little influence of any interpreter on the music if the music is well crafted. If you played the first movement of beethoven 5 in the manner of an adagio it would still convey power, energy and force

The greater the music the more it denies the voice of the interpreter


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

michael5150 said:


> If bach has a musical opposite I would suggest mahler because the matter which mahler uses to occupy space is disproportionate to that space.


Hence perhaps your comments on the preferably lessened value of interpretation in musical works, an "objective" rendering: a taste for the classicist and balanced, even in compositions. But we are not even certain of the validity of nowadays HIP performances as "historically authentic", and tempi and expression between them vary a lot as well. 
A robot playing through the score won´t necessarily do the job of communicating great works of art (Welte-Mignon being an early, terrible attempt), and personal interpretations contribute to the many-sided value of them (like in the case of the ensemble theatre, for example) .


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## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

U


joen_cph said:


> Hence perhaps your comments on the preferably lessened value of interpretation in musical works, an "objective" rendering: a taste for the classicist and balanced, even in compositions. But we are not even certain of the validity of nowadays HIP performances as "historically authentic", and tempi and expression between them vary a lot as well.
> A robot playing through the score won´t necessarily do the job of communicating great works of art (Welte-Mignon being an early, terrible attempt), and personal interpretations contribute to the many-sided value of them (like in the case of the ensemble theatre, for example) .


Yes I agree with you but I have heard synthetic renditions of great works and the sound still manages to seem human by the involvement of advanced harmonic relations. Chord progressions are very controlling as well as being controlled. The use of the relative minor of a major key if changed to major is I find a superb controller of our emotions. For example D major to B major 7 and on to E and A 7. This gives a level of the unexpected because in major keys the relative minor is a slight drop in mood. The progression from major to relative major instead of minor is unexpected and changes drop in mood to conciliation. This occurs because the sudden major inclusion is still in the tonic of that relationship. This phenomenon of harmony has as its analogy the correct key to open the case. Keys have a character as is well known. F for pastorale moods for example. Harmonic shifts have their own character too. If the composer masters this phenomenon then his music will still seem convincingly human when played by a robot. It is a conversion. That of music as art to music as science.


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## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

The composers who sounds worst using synthetic performance are the late romantics most notably richard strauss and mahler. The performance fails to move. We can blame the performance but we may be wrong. Prelude 1 from bach 48 will always be touching because the harmonic relations are so advanced. If mozart can predict his own harmonic choices three bars ahead then bach may have been able to predict his own choices five bars ahead. It is almost like chess.


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## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

There are advanced harmonic relations found in atonal music. Most notably schoenberg who was far superior to Stravinsky in my opinion. The atonality of schoenberg shows mastery of tonality. Schoenberg works nearly as well as bach when played by an automaton. Despite the atonality schoenberg in writing using tonality would have neen capable of affecting emotions to a high degree. He did it to some extent in passages of transfigured night


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

I also lean towards No. 25 - it's a bit more edgy and done in a more 'pure' Sturm und Drang vein, i.e. in a more baroque-like style. The first movement is very agitated and is perhaps more violent than that of No. 40. I especially like the quiet parts in the 1st movement, where one hears only the solo clarinet. There are also chamber-music like question-answer segments in it. But both symphonies are great in their own way, of course No. 40 is awesome as well.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

.......................


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

My favorite Mozart Symphonies are numbers 38 and 25. 

I really seem to like the way Mozart uses harmonic language in the key of G minor. Symphony 25 and the G minor String Quintet being the two prominent examples. Symphony 40 in G minor is excellent as well.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Michael5150 writes:

The greater the music the more it denies the voice of the interpreter.

I find little influence of any interpreter on the music if the music is well crafted.

I have heard synthetic renditions of great works and the sound still manages to seem human by the involvement of advanced harmonic relations. If the composer masters this phenomenon then his music will still seem convincingly human when played by a robot. It is a conversion. That of music as art to music as science.

The composers who sounds worst using synthetic performance are the late romantics most notably richard strauss and mahler. The performance fails to move. We can blame the performance but we may be wrong.

Your theory that the "greater" music is, the less interpretation it needs to convey its full meaning, appears to rest on the assumption that fixed pitch and metrical rhythm - the things that can be precisely represented by a score in the Western tradition - are the primary conveyors of musical meaning, and that their effective arrangement is the sole, or nearly the sole, evidence of artistic value. For most music in the world throughout history this has not been the case. Even in Western classical music it comes close to being true only in a portion - perhaps a small portion - of the music written during a relatively brief period, roughly the 18th century, when the rational temper sought expression in a highly rationalized art. It was not true during this or any other time that composers thought of their music as requiring no interpretation to be properly realized - music has never been merely a science and not an art - but both prior to this period and after it much was expected of the performer in bringing the rigid blueprint of the score to fresh and nuanced life.

It is certainly true that a well-structured score is an indicator of musical excellence in any period. However, a score may be quite well-structured but also so written as to ask, explicitly or implicitly, for a range of dynamic, rhythmic, and timbral nuance which are quite beyond the possibility of notation. There is no obvious reason why such music, which became characteristic of the Romantic period (and had been common in the Baroque as well), is to be regarded as inherently inferior to music whose essence is contained more in an arrangement of pitches as such than in what it is possible to do with those pitches once they exist. There is no reason, other than aesthetic bias, why _Tristan und Isolde_ should be considered inferior, as art, to _The __Art of Fugue_.

Your test of the "greatness" of a musical work - it's ability to project excellence even if played by a machine - tests only a portion of music's means of expression, a portion which in itself must fall far short of conveying the totality of what music as an art can say.


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## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Michael5150 writes:
> 
> The greater the music the more it denies the voice of the interpreter.
> 
> ...


Yes I agree with you in part. However I do wonder why a composer like bach or even wagner needs an interpreter. You mention Tristan. I am a great enthusiast for this music. The prelude is greater than that for any of wagners other music dramas. I love the parsifal prelude but can recognise its flaws, particularly in the main theme shared among several groups of instruments. I dislike excessive arpeggio figuration and it is found here in abundance. Wagner always sounds weaker somehow when his strings deliver ostinato arpeggios as in the donner scene of rheingold. It's very peculiar of me but just because I am very critical of something doesn't at all mean I don't like it. The donner scene is wonderful to listen to as a piece of entertainment but it is inferior to a great degree to the badinerie of bach to take an example. The badinerie needs little interpretation and is greater music. My idea is supported repeatedly throughout history but even this belief in history supporting my views is my opinion. I just can not reconcile myself to believing that judgement of music is a matter of taste. To me music has laws which are absolute and certain composers seem to be mindful of these laws more than others. I was fanatical about wagner at one time and still love him but on the whole late romanticism is inferior to beethoven for example. Romanticism seems to require the interpreter too much in my opinion.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I don't understand this bit:



michael5150 said:


> as a piece of absolute music which has no programmatic involvement the first movement of 25 is greater [than 40/i].


Is it that you don't hear



michael5150 said:


> motifs which suggest torment and suffering


in 40/i?


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Mozart symphony 25 is another great symphony of Mozart.:tiphat:


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Ha, 25 is a great symphony but 40 is much better. 40 is one of the best things Mozart created.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Ha, 25 is a great symphony but 40 is much better. 40 is one of the best things Mozart created.


In my poll of the last seven symphonies of Haydn and Mozart it is number 3 in the Mozart symphonies.


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