The symphony #36 by Mozart is a grandly inventive work that Mozart created in an amazing hurry. For the first time, he begins a symphony with a slow introduction, declamatory at the outset, then yielding and full of pathos, and suspense.
The Allegro to which it leads is energetic and festive, with a touch of the march about it. And how delightful the first theme is, with those slow notes that so carefully fail to prepare us for the sudden rush of the third and fourth bars. Only the recapitulation—more a repeat than the continuation or development we are apt to expect from Mozart at this point in his life—reminds us of the daunting life deadline against which he wrote.
The Andante, touched by the 6/8 lilt of a siciliano, is in F major, but yearns always for minor-mode harmonies.
The Minuet is courtly, and the trio, with its delicious scoring for oboe an octave above the violins and for bassoon an octave below (or sometimes in canon and sometimes a sixth below), is demurely rustic.
The Finale brings back the first movement’s exuberance, but in heightened form.
Here is Carlos Kleiber to conduct this masterpiece:
