Mozart Symphony 40

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I am reviewing Symphony Number 40, Movement 1 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart completed this symphony in the year of 1788. This was one of the pieces that he wrote closer towards the end of his life. What I noticed first of all is that the piece sounds dark. It almost has a spooky or sad feeling to it, which helps me recognize that the piece is in a minor key (G minor to be exact). The melody can be heard clear by the violins as they quietly start off. You can also hear, very faintly, in the background the strings playing the harmony. The rest of the orchestra then comes into play, such as woodwinds, the flute, clarinet, and oboe. Also you can hear the cello, double bass, bassoon, and French horns. The beginning has a clear, smooth melody…show more content…
Then you hear the strings start to ease back in to the finish of the exposition. The exposition is then repeated over again. From listening this far into the piece it seems to have a homophonic texture. It has a very dissonant sound to start with and then after the transition it becomes more consonant sounding, but still has dissonance. After the exposition has been completed we go into the development where the woodwinds start off and the violins are still playing the main melody. The woodwinds playing then begin to start playing a counter melody and you also hear more of the clarinet, flute, and horns during this time. The melody goes back to violins towards the end of the development. The orchestra is a lot louder sounding during this period, during the middle, and starts off and ends pretty quietly. I noticed a few crescendos during this period. The flutes pretty much transition the piece into the recapitalization, where you still have that main melody and you see that we are starting back again with the first theme of the exposition. We are now back in the minor…show more content…
(Sadie, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Paragraph 1) Born an Austrian composer Mozart was unique from other children. By the age of six he had already started to compose pieces of music. At the age of 10 he had amazingly became recognized as a child prodigy. When Mozart turned 12 he had already composed his first opera. By a young age Mozart had accomplished way more than most composers and musicians could have hoped to in their lifetime. Mozart was different from most of the composers of the time period because he wrote a variety of music genres. He is famous for having composed hundreds of different symphonies, sonatas, masses, concertos, operas and chamber music. His music was emotional and very complex. He also had a tendency to make his compositions very dissonant sounding. During the periods of 1778-1779 Mozart struggled to find jobs. This resulted in Mozart spiraling into a deep depression and it was being reflected in his music that he composed at the time. He decided to move his family back to Salzburg and proceeded to become a conductor and violinist. In 1781 Mozart moved to Vienna, where he resided until his death in December 5, 1791 at age 35. On August 4, 1782 Mozart married Constanze and the couple went on to have six children, but sadly only two of them ended up surviving. Their two children were Karl

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