# Are Mozart's last three symphonies really a single 12 movement wordless oratorio?



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

This is, I believe, what Harnoncourt claims in the booklet of his new recording.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> This is, I believe, what Harnoncourt claims in the booklet of his new recording.


Sounds like ox puddy to me.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> This is, I believe, what Harnoncourt claims in the booklet of his new recording.


I think he might be taking it too far there. They're great symphonies, but they were made as such.


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## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

I justed googed that and saw an article in the guardian. It sounds nutty to me. But I'm not a musician.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I suppose there are two claims

1. They is a single piece (I recall they were published with one opus number - can someone verify?) Are there any shared ideas? 

2. It are religious. I recall that the Jupiter's finale uses church music, and that Mozart was writing a mass when he wrote these symphonies. But I have no idea if more religious meanings can be found.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

No, because each were composed and performed for different audience. Over Romanticised way of looking at it I think.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> No, because each were composed and performed for different audience.


Are you sure? I thought it was very unclear why he wrote this music, but I could be wrong.


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

violadude said:


> Sounds like ox puddy to me.


But makes better copy than "There are 624 recordings of Mozart's last three symphonies in catalogue. Here's another one."


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## Guest (Sep 15, 2014)

violadude said:


> Sounds like ox puddy to me.


Why are you so mean about ox puddy? Why would you denigrate it so? I know it's not a bouquet of sweet smelling meadow flowers and all, but still. Ox puddy's not quite _that_ bad!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

No, they aren't.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> This is, I believe, what Harnoncourt claims in the booklet of his new recording.


At age 84, we are allowed to say what we think, no matter how off the wall.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> This is, I believe, what Harnoncourt claims in the booklet of his new recording.


This sounds like a kind of hyperbole or waxing with poetic license. It is the sort hyperbole that anyone responsible enough to know they are respected and what they say will be generally read... well, they could have been a titch more responsible and less self-indulgently irresponsible.

_Taken literally, it is flat-out whack-a-doodle-doo inanity_.

Taken as poetic hyperbole, it is a very round-about and florid way of saying they are magnificent symphonies, _which is I'm sure all he was meaning to say_ -- though I have to think he was a bit of a very self-absorbed putz to think to say it that way in print... yet, I have to flat out equally more than a little marvel in imagining that anyone reading it would think to take it literally!


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2014)

Radames said:


> I justed googed that and saw an article in the guardian. It sounds nutty to me. But I'm not a musician.





PetrB said:


> Taken as poetic hyperbole, it is a very round-about and florid way of saying they are magnificent symphonies, _which is I'm sure all he was meaning to say_ -- though I have to think he was a bit of a very self-absorbed putz to think to say it that way in print... yet, I have to flat out equally more than a little marvel in imagining that anyone reading it would think to take it literally!


Looking at the article in The Guardian, it doesn't seem to be poetic hyperbole, but a genuine theory.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/23/mozart-last-symphonies-nikolaus-harnoncourt-review



> After 60 years of studying and conducting these works, Harnoncourt is convinced that Mozart intended the three symphonies, famously composed in just two months in the summer of 1788, as a unity - the parts of a gigantic instrumental oratorio, which was perhaps inspired by a choral work of CPE Bach's, Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu, that he had conducted earlier the same year. That, Harnoncourt's reasoning goes, would explain the thematic connections between the three works, and also why the opening to the E-flat Symphony K543 is conceived like an overture, and why neither that work nor the G minor Symphony K550 has what he calls a "proper" finale, unlike the C major Jupiter Symphony K551, whose last movement seems intended to sum up everything that has come before.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

This, and just as I have run out of musicologist-repellent spray.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

There may not be any objective truth in it, but it sure is a _beautiful_ thought!


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2014)

Couchie said:


> This, and just as I have run out of musicologist-repellent spray.


Harnoncourt is a musicologist?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Are you sure? I thought it was very unclear why he wrote this music, but I could be wrong.


There is a lot of romanticized theory / conjecture as to why he wrote these, indeed.

They are touted as remarkably singular as the only pieces (add: only major pieces) by Mozart we know of which he wrote without the works being commissioned. When he composed them, he was in a fallow period as far as paid work goes.

Mozart had a history of selling out subscription concerts with music composed specifically to be premiered at such concerts.

With a bit of free time on his hands, with no immediate jobs to fill in front of him and no further commissions crossing his desk at the moment, the more sane and realistic supposition is that he used that spot of time when he was 'out of work' to compose three symphonies _in anticipation of 'selling them' for subscription concerts in the near future_ -- i.e. all about work and making a living.

There is a German word, as only German can do, combining several ideas to form one meaning: the meaning of this word I've forgotten is "To read far too much into something beyond what is actually there, the further implication that what is read into the thing is beyond the limits of good reasoning or proof." The romantic era, and some of its takes on history, like any other supposition about these three symphonies and why they were written, is just such an enterprise.

With any composer writing so prolifically and quickly, to find elements or scraps of ideas already used in former works, regardless of whether for church use, opera, or abstract concert fare, is commonplace, and no 'meaning' should be attached to those found similarities.

You can readily find in scores by Mozart written around the time of any of his major works in the very near Kv. listing numbers, similarities of style in the actual melodic and harmonic elements (including melodic contours) and there is no symbolism in any of that, and nothing ought to be concluded from those similarities beyond the fact they signify that a prolific and very busy composer was working on pieces back to back.

Any other theories -- without a lot of corroborating evidence found and 'proven' through old-fashioned scholarship and sources considered reliable enough -- are speculative theories, often glamorized, made mystic and / or are more mere romantic notions from the late romantic era, looking back and 'composing fictions about composers and their motivations.'

As if this composer's music, most of it, is not miraculous enough without dressing it up further with mystical - romantic feathers


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MacLeod quoting The Guardian said:


> After 60 years of studying and conducting these works, Harnoncourt is convinced that Mozart intended the three symphonies, famously composed in just two months in the summer of 1788, as a unity - the parts of a gigantic instrumental oratorio, which was perhaps inspired by a choral work of CPE Bach's, Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu, that he had conducted earlier the same year. That, Harnoncourt's reasoning goes, *would explain the thematic connections between the three works*, and also why the opening to the E-flat Symphony K543 is conceived like an overture, and why neither that work nor the G minor Symphony K550 has what he calls a "proper" finale, unlike the C major Jupiter Symphony K551, whose last movement seems intended to sum up everything that has come before.


Let's just focus in a bit. Can someone who's studied music please explain -- what are the thematic connections?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Let's just focus in a bit. Can someone who's studied music please explain -- what are the thematic connections?


I would think after a squib like that, the world should look to Maestro Harnencourt for the full elucidation. Until then, it is a musician making one of those 'similarity' associations and making a bold musicological claim. I am a musician, and I'm not going to make an analytic of and comb through three large symphonic works for you, or anyone here, to back up a claim made by an eminent musician and musicologist. That's _his_ job.

All I can say is leave it to a German musician who happens to know Mozart conducted a particular Bach work to then attribute the inspiration for three Mozart Symphonies, with musical allusions, to a Bach work.

BTW... if there are only a few notes of a theme involved, a clever music theorist / musicologist could also quite readily and convincingly 'prove' that those three symphonies were based on "Mary Had A Little Lamb." A few notes here, there, an accidental or deliberate lifted sequence of two or three chords, either in the main theme or tossed off in a development section, are just not proof enough, because like 'coins of the realm,' they have passed through many many hands.

I don't suppose it would temper your thoughts on the subject to know that Maestro Harnencourt has quite the reputation for making sweeping pronouncements which are merely his opinion, nothing more, as if they were the voice of all musical authority.

Write him a letter.

ADD: after having looked them up to be certain of the keys each are in:
39: E♭ major
40: G minor
41 C major

I would point out that, for a composer who could and did hang a near to three-hour long opera on the structure of a classical symphony, that to compose three large works 'to go together' as an alleged three-movement work, _and not have them in some key relationship more in line with the times, the composer's habits and his thinking_, *is more than odd*: it puts the entire conjecture very much in doubt.

Yes, the three keys outline a c minor triad, but starting a work on the mediant, then moving to the dominant for the second movement and then the tonic for the last movement is just not anything Mozart would have done with a three-movement oratorio, opera or 'mega symphonic cycle.'

Topping that all, even of Harnencourt's premise is proven conclusively by the world community of musicologists, I don't think it would make a hair's difference in how those works are heard or perceived, i.e. it would not add a scintilla of more meaning or depth to them than they already have.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Harnoncourt may be trying to fully 'equate' Mozart's symphonic and oratorio efforts with Haydn's - look at the number of movements - 12, and 12 London symphonies. Plus the oratorios, for which Mozart did not get the acclaim that Haydn did. We all know Harnoncourt is also a devout Haydn conductor. What could speak against this, though, is that Mozart's position as one of the 'top 3' composers is completely solidified, which would mean that he would not need such 'defence'.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Harnoncourt is a musicologist?


Well he is a conductor, but when he is not waving a stick around and runs his mouth about music he becomes a musicologist, who is properly defined as anybody who engages in musicology. Musicology is like alchemy, only less scientific.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Couchie said:


> Well he is a conductor, but when he is not waving a stick around and runs his mouth about music he becomes a musicologist, who is properly defined as anybody who engages in musicology. Musicology is like alchemy, only less scientific.


*ROFLWTIME*

Thanks man, I needed that


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> Harnoncourt may be trying to fully 'equate' Mozart's symphonic and oratorio efforts with Haydn's - look at the number of movements - 12, and 12 London symphonies. Plus the oratorios, for which Mozart did not get the acclaim that Haydn did. We all know Harnoncourt is also a devout Haydn conductor. What could speak against this, though, is that Mozart's position as one of the 'top 3' composers is completely solidified, which would mean that he would not need such 'defence'.


Well the specific oratorio that Harnoncourt mentions as being an influence on Mozart isn't by Haydn, it's by CPE Bach - Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu.


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## hovenmoz (Sep 16, 2014)

I suppose you can think of it this way if it makes you appreciate the pieces better


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

PetrB said:


> BTW... if there are only a few notes of a theme involved, a clever music theorist / musicologist could also quite readily and convincingly 'prove' that those three symphonies were based on "Mary Had A Little Lamb." A few notes here, there, an accidental or deliberate lifted sequence of two or three chords, either in the main theme or tossed off in a development section, are just not proof enough, because like 'coins of the realm,' they have passed through many many hands.


Hey! I just found that there's this I-ii-V-I chord progression that keeps showing up in all of these works, and many others besides. Is it all part of Mozart's homage to Vivaldi?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I tried the first movement of K551 today. I have never heard anything like it, including Harnoncourt's other recordings.There's a certain shock of the new that I'm feeling -- you need to have a gestalt switch to appreciate it. It's the least buffo, most expressive, most serious first movement of the Jupiter I have ever come across. In _mood _it reminded me of the masonic music in Act 2 of Magic Flute.

What I think what we're seeing is what the oratorio conception means. I find it fascinating.

I also listened to the fugue, which I thought was revelatory not least because of the balances, some beautiful woodwind.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

violadude said:


> Sounds like ox puddy to me.


Yeah. Sounds like Maestro H has a bit too much time on his hands.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

hpowders said:


> Yeah. Sounds like Maestro H has a bit too much time on his hands.


A bit too much time hitting the bong.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> A bit too much time hitting the bong.


 And a conditioned delusion that any time he makes some 'profound' statement the entire musical world sits up, takes notice, and considers it seriously, LOL.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I have no idea if there is any truth to this, I will take my fellow TC members words for it that this claim is likely inaccurate, however it seems as though some are almost threatened by this hypothesis, and I wonder why. So what if it turned out to have some truth to it? Would it lessen the music in any way? Personally, I think if someone wants to listen to this music as a 12 movement wordless Oratorio all the power to them, I don't see anything wrong with that and its an interesting thought. I'm sure there are still some things we don't know about all these famous works, and composers original intentions.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The thing that I fnd annoying is that Harnoncourt can say things like there are shared themes, without going on to say what those themes are. I have no idea whether people who know about classical style know what he means, but it looks like noone who posts here or elsewhere on the web can make sense of his idea. Maybe there is noone here who has kept up with Mozart studies. 


On the positive side I think the performances are interesting, probing.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

violadude said:


> A bit too much time hitting the bong.


He and me both.

I've always found H's performances a bit eccentric as if he is just trying to be different, regardless of whether it sounds musically logical or not.

When I see his name on a CD, I'm like a roach seeing a human approaching with a can of Raid.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

hpowders said:


> He and me both.


Together, we can be the Three Weed-keteers


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

violadude said:


> Together, we can be the Three Weed-keteers


To post this many times in 9 months, one has to be either crazy or "drunk". :lol::lol:


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