Mozart and his mother arrived in Paris on 23 March 1778. Three letters from Mozart to his father of 12 June, 3 July and 9 July – partly devoted to reporting the illness and death of his mother on 3 July – all refer, most probably, to the composition and performance of the piece now known as the ‘Paris’ Symphony, k297.Footnote 1 Among the descriptions of the symphony there is, famously, a phrase in which Mozart refers to one particular repeated passage in the first movement; as Chadwick Jenkins has observed, ‘discerning just what this passage was has been the source of a great deal of debate’.Footnote 2 By closely re-examining the original wording of Mozart's text and comparing it with other contemporary sources, this essay presents a new interpretation of the relevant sentences of Mozart's letter of 3 July, which in turn prompts a new suggestion as to the identity of the musical passage in the symphony. Ultimately, this provides another perspective on the ways in which Mozart tailored his compositions to match local tastes – how he responded to the expectations of his audience.
The original wording of Mozart's letter is of crucial importance in discerning the identity of the passage. Mozart's phrase about the ‘Paris’ Symphony has been translated various times over the last seventy years, allowing for and leading to different interpretations. In the introduction to his book on Mozart's early years, Stanley Sadie states that he drew mostly on translations of Mozart's letters from the ‘standard English edition’ by Emily Anderson from 1938, but he adds that he ‘usually modified them in the hope of conveying more clearly Mozart's meaning’.Footnote 3 Sadie thus heightens one of the core problems when using foreign-language writings as a source: though the understanding of any source, historical or otherwise, and even by a native speaker, can be a matter of debate, ambiguities are inevitably increased by translations, since each translation is always already to some extent an interpretation.
The ‘Effective Passage’
Mozart's main – and most notorious – discussion of the ‘Paris’ Symphony is included in his letter of 3 July.Footnote 4 Here, in the course of a more detailed description of the music, he mentions a passage in the first Allegro that the audience had particularly enjoyed (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 Mozart writing to his father, 3 July 1778. Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Salzburg, Bibliotheca Mozartiana, Mappe 22/312, p. 2, detail. Used by permission
The relevant lines referring to the passage appear towards the bottom of the text in Figure 1. The German text reads:
Ich habe eine sinfonie, um das Concert spirituel zu eröfnen, machen müssen. an frohnleichnams-Tag [18 June] wurde sie mit allem aplauso aufgeführt…. die Sinfonie fieng an … und gleich mitten in Ersten Allegro, war eine Pasage die ich wohl wuste daß sie gefallen müste, alle Zuhörer wurden davon hingerissen – und war ein grosses applaudißement – weil ich aber wuste, wie ich sie schriebe, was das für einen Effect machen würde, so brachte ich sie auf die lezt noch einmahl an – da giengs nun Da capo.
In the first English translation of Mozart's letters, by Emily Anderson, this passage reads thus:
I have had to compose a symphony for the opening of the Concert Spirituel. It was performed on Corpus Christi day with great applause … and just in the middle of the first Allegro there was a passage which I felt sure must please. The audience were quite carried away – and there was a tremendous burst of applause. But as I knew, when I wrote it, what effect it would surely produce, I had introduced the passage again at the close – when there were shouts of ‘Da capo’.Footnote 5
In his comprehensive study of Mozart's symphonic output, Neal Zaslaw looked at this phrase in detail and realized that a different translation was possible, and perhaps even required.Footnote 6 He therefore offered a new, slightly amended translation for the ending of Mozart's description:
… because I knew, however, as I wrote it, what kind of an effect it would make, therefore I brought it in again one more time at the end.Footnote 7
In 2000 Robert Spaethling published a new edition of selected Mozart letters; his new translation of this part of the letter reads:
I had been requested to compose a sinfonie for the opening of the Concert spirituel. It was performed on Corpus Christi Day.… and right in the middle of the First Allegro came a Passage that I knew would please, and the entire audience was sent into raptures – there was a big applaudißement;– and as I knew, when I wrote the passage, what good effect it would make, I brought it once more at the end of the movement – and sure enough there they were: the shouts of Da capo.Footnote 8
So far, the most recent translation to have appeared in print is that by Sadie in his book on Mozart's early years:
Right in the middle of the first Allegro, there was a passage that I knew must please, all the hearers were quite carried away – and there was a great burst of applause – but I had known when I wrote it what kind of effect it would make, so I brought it back again at the close – when there were shouts of Da capo.Footnote 9
These translations have slight, yet important, differences in detail – differences that justify a much closer look at Mozart's German.Footnote 10 To begin with, so as to indicate where in the symphony this passage occurs, Mozart uses the words ‘gleich mitten in Ersten Allegro’, which in the available English translations is rendered as ‘just/right in the middle of the first Allegro’. However, this is a very literal reading. The word ‘mitten’ does indeed mean ‘in the middle’, but in quite a broad sense, and it frequently connotes something approaching the sense of simply ‘within’. Mozart combines it with the word ‘gleich’, meaning ‘immediately’. One could say, therefore, that Mozart is merely pointing out the fact that the passage in question appeared ‘immediately within’ the first movement: he is emphasizing that it was as early as somewhere within the first movement that there was a passage that the audience liked, and not only in the second or third movement.
In Search of the Passage
Nikolaus Harnoncourt suggested that the passage to which Mozart referred is part of the second ‘theme’ or ‘group’ at bars 65–73, which recurs at bars 220–227.Footnote 11 Similarly, Sadie suggested that the passage is ‘the continuation of the main secondary idea, the passage (at bar 65) where the upper strings play in three octaves above pizzicato basses and changing wind harmonies, and which after a brief tutti resumes and moves in a new direction, presented with a different twist each time’.Footnote 12 It seems, however, that all passages that appear in both the exposition and the recapitulation of the first movement are unlikely to be the one Mozart refers to. Any repetition would not have been sufficiently noteworthy for Mozart to mention in these cases, since it would merely have been consistent with generic expectations. Mozart would surely not have claimed that he repeated a passage because he knew the audience would like it if one would have expected him to repeat it anyway. Indeed, realizing this problem, Sadie consequently suggested that the passage ought to be one that appears thrice in the symphony.Footnote 13 Had Mozart referred to such a ‘double repetition’, however, he could have been more explicit. Instead, his words ‘noch einmahl’, or ‘once again’, suggest that there was only one repetition of the passage. His use of the expression ‘Da capo’ also implies as much: he would probably not have used this formulation for a second repetition.
In addition, and crucially, Mozart wrote that he brought the passage ‘auf die lezt noch einmahl an’. Anderson translated this as ‘I had introduced the passage again at the close’, and in English scholarship Mozart's phrase has been translated in this general sense ever since. It has been taken to mean ‘I introduced it once more at the end of the movement’.Footnote 14 But Mozart's German might well have a different meaning. The expression ‘auf die lezt’ (modern: ‘auf die Letzt’) is a pecularity of Austrian German. In his more or less contemporary Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart Johann Christoph Adelung explains the Austrian use of the expression:
In einigen R.A. [=regions of Austria] hat man in der vertraulichen Sprechart auch das Hauptwort die Letzt oder die Letzte. Es gehet auf die Letzte, es gehet zum Ende. Zu guter Letzt, zum Beschluß, S. 2. Letze. Auf die Letzte (endlich, am Ende) machen sie mir wohl noch alles weiß.Footnote 15
In his last sample sentence, Adelung suggests the synonyms ‘endlich, am Ende’, which literally mean ‘finally (or ultimately), at the end’.Footnote 16 But Adelung's last sentence reads ‘In the end, you will make me believe everything.’ This is to say that ‘auf die Letzte’ did not always literally mean ‘at the end’, but was also simply a method of rhetorical emphasis, used much as the word ‘ultimately’ often is in English.
It is also instructive to consider Mozart's use of the expression ‘auf die letzt’ in other letters from the time. In a letter of 2 October 1777 he refers to a concert and explains that he played, amongst other things:
die 2 Casationen für die gräfin, und die finalmusick mit den Rondeau auf die lezt, auswendig.
the 2 Cassations for the Countess, and then the finale-music with the Rondeau auf die lezt, from memory.Footnote 17
In this context, ‘auf die lezt’ is surely meant as rhetorical emphasis as well as ‘at the end’ in a strictly chronological sense, in part because the fact that the piece came at the end is already indicated by the term ‘finalmusick’. Two other examples merit mentioning briefly. In a letter of 16 October 1777, reporting on another concert, Mozart writes: ‘auf die lezt spiellte ich noch eine Sonate’, or ‘auf die lezt I played one more sonata’.Footnote 18 Similarly, on 13 November 1777 he wrote about a service where he played the organ: ‘auf die lezt nach dem ite missa est, spiellte ich eine fugue’, or ‘auf die lezt after the ite missa est I played a fugue’.Footnote 19 While in both of these examples ‘auf die lezt’ means ‘at the end’, the latter example in particular makes it clear that ‘auf die lezt’ is not merely the description of a chronological position. Likewise, then, when Mozart wrote that he repeated the ‘Paris’ Symphony passage ‘auf die lezt’, or ‘at the end’, this does not necessarily mean that the passage literally came at the end of the piece. In fact, Mozart's original sentence does not include the equivalent of the words ‘of the movement’, which are found in some translations. The expression therefore could just as well mean that he repeated the passage at the end of his writing it – that he had written the passage once and, at the end of writing it, he repeated it. By the same token, it may be that Mozart used the expression ‘auf die lezt’ simply as a way of emphasizing his reasons for repeating the passage: he might have been using it in the sense of ‘ultimately’ or ‘as a consequence’. One can find instances of this usage throughout contemporary Austrian literature; for example, the expression occurs in Auxilia Historia by the philosopher and historian Anselm Desing, who had studied and taught at the University of Salzburg:
Dann das damahls noch mächtige Haus Oesterreich würde er zum Feind gehabt hvben [sic]: die Protestanten würden seiner nicht geachtet, die Catholische mit ihme geeyffert, und Franckreich auf die letzt das Gespött getrieben haben.Footnote 20
For he [the Elector Ferdinand Maria of Bavaria] would have had the House of Austria, which was then still powerful, as an enemy: the Protestants would not have respected him, the Catholics would have competed with him, and France auf die lezt [‘ultimately’ or ‘as a consequence’] would have mocked him.
As pernickety as this discussion might seem, its consequences are far-reaching, since it leads to a new perspective on the passage in the first movement of the ‘Paris’ Symphony to which Mozart was referring.
What Makes the Effect?
Before coming to the passage itself, however, there is another hint in Mozart's letter as to its identity – that he knew the passage would ‘make an effect’. And, once again, the business of translation proves crucial. Anderson translated the end of the critical passage as
But as I knew, when I wrote it, what effect it would surely produce, I had introduced the passage again at the close – when there were shouts of ‘Da capo’.Footnote 21
This translation points to a more complicated problem that can arise with English translations of such constructions. In English, the first ‘it’, explaining what had been written, could refer to practically any of the preceding nouns. However, in the original German the first ‘it’ is feminine (‘sie’), and it is therefore clear that it refers back to the aforementioned ‘passage’, also feminine. Spaethling's English translation takes this nuance into account and he replaces the first ‘it’ by a repeat of ‘the passage’: ‘… and as I knew, when I wrote the passage, what good effect it would make, I brought it once more at the end of the movement’.Footnote 22 Yet it is also worth noting that the second ‘it’ – the ‘it’ that would make an effect – in the original German text is neuter (‘das’). Therefore, grammatically it cannot refer back to the passage and the first ‘it’, both of which are feminine: it is unlikely that Mozart meant to write that the ‘effect’ would be ‘made’ by the passage itself. Rather, the neutral ‘das’ may refer not to the passage, but explicitly to its being repeated: in order to describe an action – such as the repeating of the passage – one would in German always use a neutral word such as ‘das’ or ‘es’. The second ‘it’ thus anticipates the action described in the last subclause (‘… brachte ich sie auf die lezt noch einmahl an’/ ‘… auf die lezt I brought it [in] again’). To summarize: Mozart does not simply state that he knew the passage itself would make an effect. Indeed, he had already stated a little earlier that he knew it must please (‘eine Passage die ich wohl wuste daß sie gefallen müste’). Rather, however, he points out that he knew how effective the repetition of this passage would be; he repeated it because he knew ‘was das für einen Effect machen würde’ – ‘what effect that [the repetition of the passage] would make’. Immediate repetition is a general characteristic of this symphony: although there are no repeated complete sections in the movements as such (the exposition, for instance, is not repeated), it has been observed that this symphony has a considerable number of phrases that are repeated immediately – more than in any other symphony by Mozart.Footnote 23 It is possible, then, that Mozart's statement about the passage applies to most, if not all, of these repetitions and that he employed them for ‘effect’ throughout.
Finally, most translations mention ‘shouts of Da capo’.Footnote 24 However, Mozart did not write anything about ‘shouts’; he wrote only ‘da giengs nun Da capo’, or ‘it now went Da capo’, which is merely stating in a euphoric way, by use of a musical term, that the passage was repeated. Apart from the mention of ‘grosses applaudißement’, or ‘great applause’, Mozart's description does not include any explicit reference to the audience's reaction. And this applause notably occurred when the passage was performed the first time, though the enthusiastic use of ‘Da capo’ seems to imply that there was applause the second time round, as well.
Having re-examined the German text, the identity of the passage to which Mozart was referring can now be reconsidered. Based on the foregoing observations about Mozart's description, there is another good candidate for the passage in question, one that has not been given serious consideration in most publications on this symphony. This is the orchestral crescendo passage in bars 246–256 (see Example 1).
Example 1 The ‘effective’ passage? Mozart, ‘Paris’ Symphony, k297/i, bars 238–256, here with introductory bars (reduction based on Neue Mozart Ausgabe, series 4, volume 5, Sinfonien, ed. Hermann Beck (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1958)). Used by permission
Example 1 continued
Example 1 continued
This passage would first of all match Mozart's description that it was ‘within’ – mitten – the first movement; it is neither obviously at the beginning nor obviously at the end. At the beginning of this passage Mozart marks piano, and he notates a crescendo from the end of bar 248 onwards, reaching forte in bar 251. This ‘crescendo passage’ is thematically unique in the movement; there is nothing comparable at the corresponding place in the exposition (it would be around bar 90). Indeed, the crux of the passage is the perpetual oscillation between tonic and dominant. The passage is repeated more or less immediately in bars 264–276, moreover; to refer to Mozart's wording, at its end it is ‘brought [in] again’.
The immediate repetition of the crescendo passage does indeed make an ‘effect’: the music shifts, quite unexpectedly, from forte to piano between bar 256 and 257, only to lead back into the crescendo again. Impressive as this crescendo is the first time round, when it is repeated it becomes even more overwhelming; much in the manner of a Rossini crescendo, it provides a second build-up and a second climax. At the same time it is noteworthy that the repetition of this passage could be omitted without creating any syntactical or organizational problems. In fact the whole passage could be cut without affecting the overall proportions of the movement; the recapitulation would still far outweigh the exposition. The crescendo passage would thus seem to meet Mozart's description in his letter: it is gleich mitten in the first movement, it is repeated and its repetition makes for a good effect.
There is further circumstantial evidence for the idea that the crescendo passage is the one that caused the audience to be ‘carried away’ (‘alle zuhörer wurden davon hingerissen’). At the time of the symphony's performance, the orchestral crescendo was still one of the marks of what was later to be called the ‘Mannheim style’.Footnote 25 (Several studies have revealed the close links between the Mannheim and the Paris ‘schools’ in the eighteenth century.Footnote 26) Eugene Wolf observed that the ‘Mannheim symphonies often incorporate an extended, thematically independent crescendo passage or Walze’ – a description that matches the crescendo passage in the ‘Paris’ Symphony very well.Footnote 27 It is worth recalling that Mozart, when he arrived in Paris in March 1778, had just been at the Mannheim court for a prolonged period. He must have had a fresh impression of the remarkable features of the Mannheim style – ‘the epitome of symphonic taste in the 1770s’ in the words of one critic.Footnote 28 As Hermann Abert wrote, when composing this symphony Mozart ‘was pandering to the taste of Paris's music lovers not only with the “premier coup d'archet” … but also with all manner of other dynamic and orchestral delights which, as before, reveal the influence of the Mannheim school’.Footnote 29
Moreover, the orchestral crescendo had been used by Paris-based composers before; François-Joséph Gossec made extensive use of it in his Op. 3 symphonies from 1756, for example.Footnote 30 Indeed, Mozart's approach to the crescendo passage in the ‘Paris’ Symphony seems to have been characteristic of Parisian symphonies in general. Robert Dearling observed in Mozart's Symphony No. 5, k22, from 1765 ‘the effective use of a repeated phrase treated to a crescendo’ – and classified this as ‘a trick [Mozart] learned from the Mannheim-influenced composers in Paris’.Footnote 31 This local ‘tradition’ might explain why Mozart was so certain that his Paris audience would like the passage.
In the broader context, therefore, the passage to which Mozart might have been referring in his letter is a good example of the way in which he calculated his music to respond to local customs and to impress his audience. It is worth recalling here a statement by Leopold Mozart from a letter to his son of 29 June 1778 – incidentally, Wolfgang's reply to this is none other than the letter about the ‘effective passage’ under consideration in this article:
Ich wünsche daß des Wolfg: Sinfomie [sic] im Concert Spirituel gefahlen habe. – wenn ich nach den Steinmetzischen [Stamitzschen] Synfonien, die in Paris gestochen sind, urtheilen solle, so müssen die Pariser liebhaber von Lermenden Sinfonien seyn. alles ist Lermen, das übrige Misch=masch, da und dort ein guter Gedanken an unrechten Ort geschickt angebracht.Footnote 32
I hope that Wolfgang's symphony was well received in the Concert Spirituel – if I were to judge from the symphonies by Stamitz, which are published in Paris, the Parisians must love noisy symphonies. Everything is about making noise, the remainder is a mixture of bits and bites, here and there a good thought well placed at the wrong spot.
Wolfgang may have been aware of this French preference for ‘noisy music’ when composing the symphony; the crescendo passage is surely an example of the kind of ‘noise-making’ music intended to ‘make an effect’. Indeed, it has been proposed that Mozart may have been trying to incorporate ‘special effects’ into this symphony to impress his Parisian audience.Footnote 33
The audience may even have expected an elaborate crescendo passage, and therefore gave it a ‘grosses applaudißement’ when it first occurred. However, overall, especially with the repetition of the passage, Mozart may have confounded – and exceeded – his audience's expectations. In the same letter of 3 July, Mozart had stressed that he was counting on the audience's reaction to the beginning of the third movement:
das Andante gefiel auch, besonders aber das lezte Allegro – weil ich hörte daß hier alle lezte Allegro wie die ersten mit allen insrumenten zugleich und meistens unisono anfangen, so fieng ichs mit die 2 violin allein piano nur 8 tact an – darauf kam gleich ein forte – mit hin machten die zuhörer, | wie ichs erwartete | beym Piano sch – dann kamm gleich das forte – sie das forte hören, und die hände zu klatschen war eins …Footnote 34
the Andante was liked, too, but especially the final Allegro – because I heard that here all concluding Allegros, like opening Allegros, begin with all the instruments at once, and most often in unisono, so I began it with eight bars in the two violins alone in piano – instantly after that came a forte – consequently the audience / as I expected / went ‘sch’ at the piano – then immediately came the forte – their hearing the forte and clapping their hands was one and the same …
The fact that Mozart points out this local custom, which he then claims that he deliberately did not follow, is a clear sign that he used this device in a calculated way.Footnote 35 That he confessed to breaking a musical custom could also be seen as a response to his father's observation about Parisians favouring ‘noisy symphonies’.Footnote 36
In any event, the notorious passage in the ‘Paris’ Symphony's first movement and the quiet beginning of its finale neatly illustrate the ways in which Mozart engaged directly with his audience's expectations – that he was, as Jenkins put it, ‘a skilful manipulator’.Footnote 37 One could even go as far as to say that, for Mozart, the effect produced by the passage and the audience's acclaiming it were one and the same thing. Compositional quality and public success were to some extent synonymous for him. Indeed, a few months earlier Leopold had written to his son about another new composition, and he put the matter very bluntly: ‘With the opera you will do well to follow the taste of the French. If one can only win applause and be paid well, the rest is not important’.Footnote 38 Just how much – or how little – Wolfgang actually appreciated the audience is implied in his letter of 12 June 1778, where he writes of his symphony that he hopes ‘the asses, too, will find something in it that can please them’ (‘ich habe aber doch hoffnung daß die Esel auch etwas darinn finden, daß ihnen gefallen kann’).Footnote 39 Nevertheless, G. K. Hunter's conclusion about the ‘Paris’ Symphony seems particularly apt: ‘What made Mozart happy, we must note, was not the abstract achievement represented by his symphony, but its success, the occasion. This clearly was what Mozart was writing for’.Footnote 40
