Symphony No. 36 in C, K.425, Linz

Joannes Chrisostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart, who began calling himself Wolfgango Amadeo around 1770 during his first trip to Italy and switched to Wolfgang Amadè in 1777 (but who never used Amadeus except in jest), was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756, and died in Vienna on December 5, 1791. Mozart wrote his Symphony No. 36, Linz, in about four days, beginning sometime after his arrival at Linz at 9 a.m. on October 30, 1783, and having it ready for performance by Count Thun’s orchestra on November 4. 

The score of the Linz Symphony calls for 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings (first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses).

From his first symphony (composed when he was 8, in 1764) to his last, the Jupiter (composed when he was just 32, in summer 1788), Mozart’s production of symphonies, their nature and implications, changed radically. The spearhead of that change was Joseph Haydn, who ended up being called “Father of the Symphony” not because he invented the genre, but rather because he showed once and for all what could be done with it. One of Haydn’s protégés in that development was his young and admired friend Mozart. What we see in Haydn’s 104 symphonies is a rising line of ambition and seriousness, which is to say that his symphonies began to escape from the confines of the private music room and into longer and more ambitious pieces written for the public. So the symphony grew from being part of a social occasion to the main focus of a social occasion. It is significant that Haydn’s last symphonies were written in London, which had more active public concert halls than anywhere in German lands at the time. Haydn’s London symphonies are big pieces for big orchestras and audiences of hundreds.

So Haydn was father of the symphony because he lifted it from a minor entertainment in private concerts to the king of public instrumental genres. That is where Mozart, following Haydn’s lead, ended with his last symphonies, and that is where Beethoven picked up the genre and turned it to his own purposes—all of it grounded in what Haydn and Mozart had done.

Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 in C, K.425, written in 1783, is very much a Viennese symphony, starting with its Haydn-style slow introduction, the first time Mozart had done that. It is called the Linz because Mozart wrote it on a visit to that city. When he traveled, he usually had some symphonies and concertos in his trunk, because there was likely going to be a concert wherever he landed. But this time he had none with him, the Linz orchestra was excellent and ready for something, so he sat down and, by his own report, wrote the symphony in four or five days.

The Linz Symphony is in C major, which for Mozart, as for many in his time, implied a particular range of moods. Theorists of the day assigned emotional qualities to each key. “Is something gay, brilliant, or martial needed?” wrote one theorist. “Take C, D, E [majors].” Another: “D major…the key of triumph, of Hallelujahs, of war-cries, of victory-rejoicing.” Minor keys, especially C and G minor, were considered innately tragic. These qualities were partly related to the arcana of piano tuning and to what sounded most resonant on instruments. Still, however debatable the idea of key qualities, many composers including Mozart subscribed to the notion. In any event, though Mozart’s C major symphonies—the Linz and the Jupiter are the best known—have their own personalities, they are all indeed generally gay, brilliant, good-humored, martial here and there. In keeping, all of them have trumpets and timpani, which were considered instruments for a festive and/or military effect.

Long one of his most popular symphonies, the Linz shows no sign of haste; it’s an ambitious, richly worked out piece in four movements. Every movement but the minuet is in sonata form, which implies something both longer and more serious. After the first movement’s solemn introduction comes a medium-tempo main theme that is first quiet and inward, then suddenly martial. The second theme reverses that pattern. Both have a detectably Haydnesque air.

Singing and atmospheric, the second movement is a traditional slow dance in 6/8 called a siciliano. In keeping with the big sound of the symphony, it is the first of Mozart’s symphonic slow movements to include trumpets and timpani, here used for quiet punctuations. The main minuet theme is grand and pompous—trumpets and drums again—but the Trio in the middle is an elegant tune lightly accompanied, featuring oboe and bassoon. The finale begins quietly but with a driving energy that builds to a brassy climax; that energy lingers throughout, even in the softer passages of a kaleidoscopic movement. 

Jan Swafford

Jan Swafford is a prizewinning composer and writer whose most recent book, published in December 2020, is Mozart: The Reign of Love. His other acclaimed books include Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, Johannes Brahms: A Biography, The Vintage Guide to Classical Music, and Language of the Spirit: An Introduction to Classical Music. He is an alumnus of the Tanglewood Music Center, where he studied composition.

The first United States performance of Mozart’s Linz Symphony was given by the Orchestral Union under Carl Zerrahn’s direction on March 28, 1860, at the Boston Music Hall.

The first BSO performances of Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 were given by Georg Henschel on November 16, 1882, in Providence, Rhode Island, and then on the 18th in Boston