...I knew eventually I'd get to this. Maybe I should change the label to "sometime on the weekend" I'll update this particular section.

This week I thought I'd turn to a composer who's written 41 of them. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was probably as important to the composition of the symphony as Beethoven was, if not more throughout the Classical period he lived. The only composer from that era with a greater output of composed symphonies than Mozart was the 103 written by Haydn.

Mozart's Symphony No.38 "Prague" in D Major, K.504" was written in the latter half of 1786 and premiered on January 19, 1787, a few weeks after The Marriage of Figaro was premiered.

First Movement

First Half


Second Half

The career of Mozart in Vienna, was at times stressful on the composer as his works were often the subject of great acclaim, or great criticism. While his career was in such "up and down" status in Austria, he had a consistent crowd of devotees among the Bohemians. With a great number of people consistently dedicated to Mozart's work in Prague, he took it with such grace that he composed this symphony as well as the opera, Don Giovanni to Prague.

"Mozart seems to have written for the people of Bohemia, his music is understood nowhere better than in Prague, and even in the countryside it is widely loved."

It stands as the younger sibling among comparison to the later three of Mozart's symphonies. The Prague Symphony is often overshadowed and overlooked when in comparison to the 39-41st symphonies, even though it is often as profound and provocative. Mozart's construct of this symphony grew deeper when he wrote the final three.

Mozart's deep admiration of developing many melodies is profound in this Symphony. The Symphony opens with an adagio introduction, of which occurs in only two other symphonies (36 "Linz" and 39), before moving into the main section of the movement. Through this process, Mozart produces six melodies developed and recapitulated in a contrapuntal example of the sonata-allegro form.

Second Movement


The second movement is a typical slow movement of Mozart's symphonic compositions of that time. While being consistent in structure, harmonically the movement is unstable but uses some polyphonic interchanges to subside that. The lack of clarinet in the score sees significant effects in this movement.

The early classical symphony of the 18th century would either have three or four movements with the four-movement symphonies containing a minuet. However by the time the Prague Symphony was composed, the symphony was no longer mirrored in comparison with the Opera overture and was no longer bound to this tradition.

Third Movement


The Symphony without a minuet was a possibility and the Prague took full flight of this. Its weight among the other symphonies seems hardly changed and mostly in that, without a minuet the symphony was shorter, but didn't detract from the overall gravity of the work.

The bright exuberance achieved in the third movement kept the Symphony balanced with the harmonic tension of the second movement in its instability and the soaring brilliance of the first movement's contrapuntal flow.

About the Video
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Manfred Honeck