One of the greatest miracles in the history of music is Mozart’s achievement in the summer of 1788, composing his last three symphonies all in the space of six weeks. The sheer speed is daunting; even more impressive is the striking variety between the three works, each of which has a character and mood all its own. The middle work, in G minor, was completed on July 25; we have no record that any of these symphonies was ever performed in Mozart’s lifetime, though he is unlikely to have composed something as elaborate as a symphony (much less three of them) purely “on spec,” and he must have anticipated some concert series on which they would be heard.

By June 1788 Mozart’s fortunes had entered on the long decline that culminated in his death, at age thirty-five, three-and-a-half years later. He was the kind of man who could never stop spending money faster than he earned it, and when the Viennese public found other novelties for amusement, Mozart’s star began to fall. By early June 1788, only weeks after the Vienna premiere of Don Giovanni, Mozart was forced to write to his friend and fellow Mason, Michael Puchberg, requesting the loan of 100 gulden. Again on June 17 he needed money to pay his landlord and asked Puchberg for a few hundred gulden “until tomorrow.” Yet again on the 27th he wrote to thank Puchberg for the money so freely lent him, but also to report that he needed still more and did not know where to turn for it.

Clearly Mozart was in serious financial difficulty. During the summer he composed some educational pieces, which could serve students well, and some easy pieces that might be expected to have a good sale when published—practical ways of earning money. Yet he also composed three whole symphonies, an unlikely solution to his money problems, unless he had some plan of using them in a practical way. His first letter to Puchberg referred to “concerts in the Casino” from which he hoped to obtain subscription money in order to repay his debts. It seems, then, that he wrote all three of the symphonies with the aim of introducing them at his own concerts. But as far as we know, the concerts never took place, and Mozart probably never heard these three great contributions to the symphonic repertory.

The symphony conventionally numbered 40 (Mozart never numbered any of them) was destined to become his most famous. It was one of the few Mozart symphonies to remain in the repertory throughout the Romantic era, thanks largely to its “romantic” use of the minor mode, though no less perceptive a critic than Robert Schumann failed to find in it the pathos that seems so striking to us; Schumann regarded the symphony merely as a work of grace and charm. His view strikingly illustrates the way stylistic change—in particular the extremes of romantic expression—made the great achievements of the preceding generation seem emotionally limited. Only the last half-century has come fully to appreciate the expressive variety, ambiguity, and power in a musical language that is so polished and precise. Yet that polish conceals an element of the demonic, not least in the fact that this symphony remains in the minor through the last movement, when virtually all other minor-key symphonies of the day would relent and offer a cheerful last movement in the major.

The opening is nearly unique among classical symphonies—a hushed rustling, growing out of silence. A symphony is a public event, and in Mozart’s day it was customary to begin with a loud chord played with a downbow in all the strings, to get things off to a solid start (the performances were conductorless), to establish the home key in no uncertain terms, and possibly to shush the audience. Even in those Mozart symphonies in which the allegro starts softly, it is always preceded by a slow introduction that begins forte.

But in Symphony No. 40 we are instantly in the middle of things before we realize it. The theme emphasizes an expressive falling semitone, an age-old expression of yearning; and the melody and accompaniment raise questions about where the beat really falls in the phrase. Modulation begins already after the first emphatic cadence, and we soon reach the second theme in the relative major. Here we have to give Schumann full points: even if the passion of the symphony was lost on him, no one can dispute the grace of the new theme, with its passing chromatic tones, which prove to have consequences later. The ambiguity of phrasing so important in this movement is splendidly illustrated in the return to the main theme at the recapitulation, where the violins are already playing the long upbeat to the opening phrase during the last two measures of the development, while the winds are winding down to the cadence. The continued power of the minor mode over the expressive forces of the symphony becomes clear in the recapitulation when the second theme, instead of returning in the major, now arrives in the minor, further darkening the mood.

The slow movement is in the related major key of E-flat, but it is filled with passing chromatic figures and melodic sighs, linking it to the expressive world of the first movement. Moreover it is cast as a full sonata-form movement, which lends it greater weight. The development section remains tense in its harmonic adventures before returning to the home key for the recapitulation. The Menuetto, ostensibly a dance genre, is much too severe to suggest dancing at all; only the contrasting Trio, in the major mode, offers a brief respite from the prevailing chromatic character.

The last movement, like the first, remains in G minor at the close, a very rare case in the eighteenth century, in which the minor was regarded as unstable and generally “softened” at the very end of works. Even with finales that begin in the minor, the sun almost always emerges in the coda. But Mozart reiterates the minor mode throughout, building the development almost entirely out of the movement’s opening figure (which arpeggiates the minor triad), leading still further into daring harmonic realms before whirling home to the recapitulation. Here, as in the first movement, the second theme appeared in the major during the exposition, but its return at the recapitulation—now in G minor—signals that there is no respite. Grace and charm (as Schumann noted) are indeed present, but Mozart offers obsessive energy and passion, too. —© Steven Ledbetter