Life of Mozart

—G MINOR SYMPHONY, I788. 35mind that communes with itself and rejoices in the peacewhich fills it. This is the true source of the cheerful transportwhich rules the last movement, rejoicing in its ownstrength and in the joy of being. The last movement inespecial is full of a mocking joviality more frequent withHaydn than Mozart, but it does not lose its hold on themore refined and elevated tone of the preceding movements.This movement receives its peculiar stamp from its startlingharmonic and rhythmical surprises. Thus it has an extremelycomic effect when the wind instruments try to continue thesubject begun by the violins, but because these pursue theirway unheeding, are thrown out as it were, and break off inthe middle. This mocking tone is kept up to the conclusion,which appears to Nägeli (" Vorlesungen," p. 158) " sonoisily inconclusive " {so stillos unschliessend) ," such a bang,thatthe unsuspecting hearer does not know what has happenedto him,"^^The G minor symphony affords a complete contrast to allthis (550 K., part 2). Sorrow and complaining take theplace of joy and gladness. The pianoforte quartet (composedAugust, 1785) and the Quintet (composed May 16,1787) in G minor are allied in tone, but their sorrow passesin the end to gladness or calm, whereas here it rises in acontinuous climax to a wild merriment, as if seeking to stiflecare. The agitated first movement begins with a low plaintiveness,which is scarcely interrupted by the calmer moodof the second subject;^'' the working-out of the second partintensifies the gentle murmuri h=^T. -r-r- -^^^ E. T.A. Hoffmann says of this symphony (called the "swan song") : "Loveand melancholy breathe forth in purest spirit tones ; we feel ourselves drawnwith inexpressible longing towards the forms which beckon us to join them intheir flight through the clouds to another sphere." A. Apel attempted to turnthe symphony into a poem, which was to imitate in words the character of thedifferent movements (A. M. Z., VIII., p. 453). Cf. Ludw. Bauer's Schriften,p. 471.*' It is characteristic that in the first and last movements the second themeis only fully expressed when it enters for the second time in the minor ; in themajor key it is far less expressive.D 2