Mozart’s Serenade in B-flat Major, better known by its subtitle Gran Partita, offers a glorious explosion of Classical-era Harmoniemusik for small wind ensembles, which buoyed up many 18th-century garden get-togethers and outdoor parties. Austrian nobles especially were known for retaining house bands called Harmonien among their staff.
Much about the Serenade in B-flat Major is a mystery (its exact year of composition, for instance, or whose scribbling on the manuscript lent the work its enduring nickname). Music scholars estimate it was written around the time Mozart broke with his patronage in Salzburg in 1781 and moved to Vienna to make his own way as a composer and concert pianist.
Mozart expanded the traditional Harmonie ensemble from five, six, or eight musicians to thirteen! Oboes, clarinets, basset horns, bassoons, and horns dance together in shifting configurations over the course of seven movements, weaving a fascinating tapestry of sound.
Particularly notable is Mozart’s use of the basset horn, a relative of the clarinet invented in the 1760s whose lower register and darker timbre intensify the texture of the large wind ensemble.
Its musical grace and power, particularly in the poignant third movement, have seen the Gran Partita referenced centuries later in movies and television.
Here is a section of the music for your enjoyment:
