Talk:Symphony No. 20 (Mozart)

When I hear this recently I thought it could never have been written by Wolfgang; it seemed fairly immature, lacking direction and structure; to me it sounded like a composition by some minor Mozart contemporary. I was surprised to hear it was by HIM with a number as high as 20. Am I alone in this?

/nick willink,exeter uk


 * At age 16 (admittedly, more than a third of the way through his life). Some of his earlier symphonies do very well (though I disagree with the author of this article that bringing in the second theme in the recapitulation first is a coup; in how many mature Mozart compositions does one find it? A few, but not many. Composers who imitate it badly are (to paraphrase Thorpe-Davie) working from an image of music on paper, not in time)... but especially his symphony no. 14 in A and no. 19 in E-flat are striking.


 * That said... just one year after writing this symphony, in late 1773, Mozart wrote a piano concerto, his fifth (or first surviving original concerto. Hrm, deserves an article.. hrm.), which is one of his most inspired instrumental -- emphasis on! - works up to that point, I think... though one waits until K. 271 after that in that genre anyway...


 * Still, even though concertos 6-8 are more or less pleasant things (and no. 7 is one of the least "prepossessing" of the 27), Mozart's early piano concertos - POV, in my honest but subjective opinion, etc. - are more inspired than his early symphonies. (And for that matter... the overall sets taken as a whole, though the last half-dozen symphonies are, no argument, stunning.)


 * Especially after one gets to concerto no. 14 which is one dozen years after this symphony, and the concertos written in 1784 (piano concertos (there are articles right now on concertos 17 and 18 but 14-19 were all written that year), a year that-- for any interested parties as might not know this (sorry)... also saw the quintet for piano and winds,  one of the quartets dedicated to Haydn (the quartet in B♭ "Hunt") and the piano sonata in C minor as well. Schissel | Sound the Note! 04:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)