Recording
- IV. Finale: Molto allegroBruno Walter, Columbia Symphony Orchestra7:17
The finale of Mozart’s last symphony opens with four slow notes, C–D–F–E, and in its closing pages five separate tunes are played together. Bruno Walter conducts the Columbia Symphony Orchestra.
Listening notes · joins
- Opening four-note theme, first violins
The first violins play C–D–F–E in long notes, with quicker figures around them. Other string parts soon take up the four-note phrase. Mozart later inverts it and sets other themes above it.
- Dated 10 August 1788, Vienna
Mozart dated this symphony 10 August 1788. The E♭ and G minor symphonies had preceded it that summer. For this C major orchestra he added the trumpets and timpani that the G minor symphony leaves out.
- Development, bars 158–224
In the development, bars 158–224, the themes pass between parts and through changing keys. A new entry can begin underneath one already in progress. The four long notes sound against running figures in the strings.
- Recapitulation in C major
At bar 225 the violins bring back the opening theme in C major above moving inner strings. The other parts enter against it and overlap it.
- Letter to Michael Puchberg, 1788
In Vienna on 27 June 1788 Mozart wrote to Michael Puchberg asking for a longer loan. He said his new rooms were cheaper and that he was working hard, but his bills kept outstripping him. He closed the appeal with “I shall be silent and hope.”
- Coda, five themes combined
The coda first inverts the four-note idea in a quieter passage. Mozart then combines five themes in counterpoint, each with its own rhythm, in long notes, running figures and short replies.
- Closing C major cadences
The running lines converge on the final C major cadences. Trumpets and timpani join the winds and strings in the closing chords.
Joins
- From exposition to development
The exposition closes with a cadence in G major. The development opens at a lower dynamic, and the strings carry familiar figures into new keys. Entries overlap and are repeated at different pitches, moving the harmony away from G major.
- Dominant pedal into the recapitulation
The development comes to rest on the dominant of C major, with G held in the bass. Above the moving inner strings, the violins bring back C–D–F–E in long notes in the home key, and the accompaniment keeps up its quick pulse.
- Inversion of the four-note theme
A C major close leads into the coda at bar 357. From bar 361 a quieter passage follows, with the four-note theme inverted in sustained notes. From bar 372 the strings start the final contrapuntal combination over these notes and add the quicker themes one at a time. The full orchestra then confirms C major.