Magnificent Counterpoint in the Finale of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony
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Richard Atkinson analyzes the magnificent counterpoint in the finale of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, no. 41 in C major, K. 551, culminating in the coda, during which 5 of the previously introduced themes are combined at once, in five-part invertible counterpoint. This is a fair use educational commentary that uses excerpts from a recording by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, directed by Sir Neville Marriner.
00:00 - Exposition section
06:46 - Development section
09:12 - Recapitulation section
11:54 - Coda section (with 5-part invertible counterpoint) - เพลง
Correction: an inversion is the VERTICAL reflection of the original music (for mathematics purists out there). I meant that it is reflected over the horizontal (x) axis.
I blame Baron Von Sweiten for all of this!! ;-)
And there...quite clearly you have shown the link between mathematics and music.....beautiful!
As a mathematician -- don't worry 'bout it!!! beautiful video!!
What is the point of all this anyway?
That's fine if you want to write music like an algebraic equation.
This is the only way I want to listen to classical music now. With a color coded score and you explaining wtf is going on.
😂
So true! Especially fugue or developmental section where different parts and motives collide together, visual representation can really show the voice we ignored ❤
This is not music. This is another dimension altogether. Mr Atkinson has helped us understand better this timeless masterpiece. Thank you for your extraordinarily lucid and clear contrapuntal analysis.
An excellent analysis demonstrating Mozart's brilliant grasp of contrapuntal/fugal composition. If only he'd lived another 20 or 30 years!
That final part is literally like an orgasm to listen to if you keep up with all the parts and appreciate how they work together, it's like listening to the kyrie double fugue in the requiem, or Bach's art of fugue.
Hi Beethoven, how do you know what an orgasm feels like if you never had shred?
Or did you masturbate?
@@elias69420 What the hell is wrong with you??
@@DanielFahimi Nothing, it's just me being me
A Mankind's genius!
You mean an eargasm
The color delineation of the passages (the analysis) discussed must have taken many hours
And is sensational, I have been reading scores for 60 over years, I am 89, and have never seen such a thorough job well completed.
Now set to work and do the same for your new copyright printed edition of JS Bach’s 48 . !!!!!! I would love to relearn them
being told with the colors what I should tell my listeners, and myself as I play. Lovely. Lovely. Have just finished
Learning another 48 set by the Russian composer SHCHEDRIN , Bach would have been astonished, intrigued and disgusted at the same time.
48? You mean Well-tempered Clavier?
Every time I hear this I think "Why can't this be longer?"
I still believe that Mozart's 41st Symphony is the single best piece of classical music ever written!! Thanks for the clarity on Mozart's amazing grasp of contrapuntal/fugal composition and magnificent counterpoint in the finale! This piece of music is simply out of this world!
It's pretty great, one of the greats, but I still consider Beethoven's 5th the greatest for the share power and form breaking he does in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th movements. I think the 1st movement will always be a work of genius in showing how much can be wrought from just one idea, but those last two movements are amazing moments of development in classical music altogether while sustaining an amazing sense of listenable music. Overall, I feel like Beethoven's 5th is structurally so damn tight that it shows the composer at work while presenting beautiful and groundbreaking music worth listening to.
But don't get me wrong, I still love Mozart the most!
❤🎵🎶😍
I had the pleasure of attending a live performance a few weeks back. In the last movement I was in tears, the amount of joy and internal satisfaction was hard to describe... it's as if the music connected straight to my soul. I drove home in silence as if I were coming off a high. Music really is amazing!!
Radian1978 So well put ...I remember going to a beethoven performance of the concertgebouw orchestra and came out in a surreal state of floating on air, as far as the classics are concerned my adoration and appreciation has been unsurpassed to this day, I never spend a day without it at some point lighting up the bleakest of days, plus the fact I was brought up with Maestros Bernstein and Karajan so not a hope of not loving the classic repertoire! Best Wishes.
Your analysis reveals well how beautifully economical Mozart’s thematic development is. It’s astounding how Mozart produces such an incredible richness out of such economy of ideas.
teddy toto Wow, just wow. Incredibly complex music, which is also enjoyable and emotionally satisfying! How. did. Mozart. accomplish. this?
To quote Salieri: "Astounding! I mean it was actually unbelievable"
Sorry. I'm a little overwhelmed.I remember the first time I ever heard this work. I had just recently been introduced to classical music by a college roommate, who had an extensive collection of LPs to which he was willing to let me listen. I had been utterly clueless about music in general prior to meeting him. He changed my life, as I almost immediately discovered that I am one of those happy fortunate people who is capable of being enormously moved emotionally by great music. The last movement of the Jupiter simply reduced me to a tearful joyful puddle. I have known for years that magic was going on in there but I had no way to analyze it. Mr Atkinson, you just fixed that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Perhaps the finnish a capella sextett "Rajaton" ("borderless") can bring you to similar emotional sensations (as they brought to me).
I'm so glad when I read what classical music does to people!! It effects me so much too! It's a gift to be able to feel such wonderful feelings from classical music.
Don't worry about being overwhelmed. We all are. It's like being hit literally by a planet - the biggest planet in the solar system. Mozart was a musical colossus!
What a beautiful story :)
Hello you learned people out there. I have no formal education in music, I buy records, listen and go to concerts.This finale is a revelation to me and Atkinson's analysis tells me why. Einar, Iceland
This work is a musical monument of genius and miraculous creativity for the whole human race.
Who disliked this? Someone who dislikes Mozart? Counterpoint? Lucid musical analyses? 😂
Salieri?
@@JimEadon Haha good answer 😉
@@JimEadon LOL!
I have loved this symphony for years, but never have quite understood the "five themes" of the final movement.This is by far the most lucid explanation I have seen, and it will enhance my future understanding of this magnificent work. I will pass this on to my colleagues in the music department! Thank you, Mr. Atkinson!
I tried to count these 5 themes for the last 55 years and now all is clear!
@@josepholeary3286 those 5 themes are just amazing right?
I’m speechless! My brain can barely comprehend that amount of complexity, let alone keep track of it. I’ve been underestimating Mozart for years.
Agreed! That is why I rank Mozart's Symphony #41 as the greatest symphony ever composed!
Underestimate Mozart at your peril!!!
What was it Brahms said? "Among composers, Beethoven is the greatest. Mozart is in his own category." Or something to that effect.
The power of this stunning ending passage just made me want to cry each time when I listened since I've heard it first time in my age of 11 years old. The music reminds me of God.
Thank you, Mr. Atkinson! I'm looking forward to watching all of your posts!
Every time I play Mozart, or look at the scores, I lose my breath... of pure joy over life and all it’s possibilities. His music is like the filaments of a leaf, it’s life’s perfection ;)
my God! I'm actually crying ...I knew it was a work of genius, but to be walked through it was wonderful. Thank you!!
There are worlds inside of this music.
the first three themes are really just one theme though, a third interval. the first theme C D F E spans a third interval, we hear the F as a suspension. theme 2 is B A G, G F E, E D C all thirds, same with the transposed inversion Mozart uses later E F# G#, A B C, C D E). theme 3 is two third intervals E F# G, A B C. theme 4 does look like the first truly different one here, but if you look close at the two descending tetrachords, it's basically theme 2 in disguise. the fifth theme is indeed different. thank you so much for all your wonderful videos I truly enjoy them! youtube desperately needs more of this
Brian Bernstein I like your analysis as well as Richards's. Though I cannot claim to understand all, it generally reminds me of some of that "other" Bernstein's analyses--mind-bending and intensely interesting. I grew up admiring him, even more now; he did have a fairly unique talent for adjusting the levels of his presentations, while never coming off as simplistic or condescending. Check out his 1960 video which included Glenn Gould and Igor Stravinsky, among others.
Your comment about deception makes me wonder if WAM intended that as Easter eggs. I've always been told the man had a huge sense of humor. Doesn't the contemporary estimate of his IQ come in at something well over 200?
Mozart's humor pervades much of his work, and certainly his letters. As to his IQ, not really sure what tools they had to measure it back then. I certainly cannot lay claim to how Mozart approached this composition, and designing the five themes covered in the video. I can only analyze the themes and see their commonalities etc
Thirds are basically "cheating" in invertible counterpoint.... You can always double a voice by thirds (as long as another voice isn't already). The green theme is basically just the orange theme in thirds, the yellow theme is the blue theme in thirds. That's why i dont consider this to be all that impressive in terms of invertible counterpoint; that and the fact that with exception of the orange theme, the other themes are boring melodically (in both shape and interesting leaps).
Incredible that after around 12 years studying music and listening it everyday for hours I can't still follow all the themes of the 5 part counterpoint.
And people think classical music is boring. 🙄
Amanda Grace it really is thrilling and amazing! It’s like all music. It always has a story to spell
People who can't read think that books are boring.
Well, there is a lot of ho hum diddly dum unimaginative slavish to form music written before the romantic music dawn. Like Lully drives me nuts.
and they still gonna thinnk that maybe because its just not their music ?
u dont need to understand music to like it and to hear it for books you must have the ability of reading so ur statement is shit
"It is my profound conviction that Mozart is the highest, the culminating point which beauty has reached in the sphere of music. Nobody has made me cry and thrill with joy, sensing my proximity to something that we call the ideal, in the way that he has…. In Mozart I love everything because we love everything in a person whom we truly love" (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
I totally agree with him.
It is incredible that Mozart composed his best symphony and one of the best in all history in just 16 days. A true god of music
To be fair, this whole section is a paraphrase of one of Michael Haydn's symphonies, so he did at least have a partial model to work from. 16 days is still impressive, but Mozart, like a lot of composers of his time, were used to writing music quickly and could pump out something for others to play relatively fast. I think it was Mozart's genius that made what he did write - even quickly - to be both complex in its arrangement, simple in ideas, but so enjoyable and exciting to listen to.
Incredible! I am slowly starting to realise how great of a composer Mozart is. When I thought no composer had ever come close to match Bach's contrapuntal genius. Thank you for this wonderful analysis.
I love the counterpoint in the double concertos... two contrapuntal lines in dialogue with each other, by turns condensing and elaborating on what the other says!
@@DeflatingAtheism I love the part of 13:30 to the end, especially those 5 themes playing simultaneously
12:35 -> 13:30 !
could you imagine how much more extraordinary music we would have enjoyed, had he lived longer....thank you for this analysis!
Mozart's early demise was arguably one of the greatest tragedies in the history of music.
I remember we watched this in our composition class in high-school to help inspire and inform us about fugue and counterpoint. At my high-school, there was another teacher who had the last name Atkinson, and she wasn't very good at her job, to the point where her students hated and mocked her. When our teacher for our class showed us this, my immature students started hollering and yelling because they saw the name "Atkinson", and it really pissed me off that they weren't paying attention, especially since I knew how genius this video was.
I have always enjoyed this symphony. But your analysis has made me understand its intricacies. Thank you so much.
Actually Mozart had to struggle with fugue as a form from his youth. I think it is safe to say that fugue did not come "naturally" to him as it did Bach...or even much later Beethoven. But this magnificent example clearly demonstrates how HARD Mozart was capable of working on a "musical puzzle." He was not afraid of hard work and challenge.
Of course this example is a work of utter and complete genius, and it is exciting and beautiful. There is no "evidence" of the struggle Mozart had to come to terms with this form. Rather, it is natural and flowing. My point is that I don't believe that this was just "coming out of his pen." I believe he had to work on every line and carefully think about their placement.
sanjosemike
I have no doubt that Mozart's greatest masterpieces were the result of hard work. He admitted this himself when talking about his 6 quartets dedicated to Haydn (some of his greatest masterpieces), which he said were the fruits of long/hard labor. On the other hand, we have accounts of him skillfully improvising fugues as a young child (something we don't have for Bach or Beethoven). In other words, I agree with you that he probably spent a large amount of time/effort on this particular movement, but I disagree completely that fugal writing came less "naturally" to Mozart than it did to anyone else. Beethoven and Bach both worked extremely long and hard on their most complex compositions. We know both were also great improvisers later in life, but I don't think there's any evidence that contrapuntal composition came any more "naturally" to them than it did to Mozart.
Thanks for your reply Richard. I got this "message" from some of the early letters he wrote to his sister, in which he recounted the "difficulties" he was having with fugal writing and that he had to spend a lot of time working at it. Mozart routinely "exaggerated" in his letters, sometimes for the fun of it. We don't always know if he was anywhere serious about what he was saying.
That said, I agree that there is a "fallacy" of Mozart's writing coming DIRECTLY into his head and writing it down. He actually worked very hard at getting "things right." But it is likely that he disposed of all of his "substandard" work, so we don't really know what he threw out.
Beethoven's thematic struggles are the stuff of legend. He crossed out entire movements, entire pages, perhaps also entire works. Some other composers could "use" Beethoven's editing skills. Mahler was one. Certainly Dvorak was another. Chopin sometimes actually accepted the advice of some of his students and repeated passages that did not need "repeating."
sanjosemike
When Mozart improvised on the organ at St Thomas Church Leipzig in May 1789, both the cantor, who had been a pupil of Bach, the organist and other experienced and seasoned musicians thought Mozart was the new Bach.
Ian, while there is absolutely no doubt that Mozart was a genius at improvising, it is unlikely that Mozart's style was anything close to Johann Sebastian's in any meaningful way. So just because some "observers" thought that he was another Bach, I would take that with a grain of salt. Not because Mozart's music is any less interesting and complex, but simply saying that their styles were very different. Vive la difference. One thing I don't know about is how good a performer Mozart was on the violin. Both Johann Sebastian and Wolfgang were basically keyboard virtuosi. But technique for violin is very different. And both take a lifetime to learn.
sanjosemike
I read (or heard) somewhere that actually, of the three composers you mentioned above, it was Beethoven who struggled most with counterpoint; but who after grit and determination came to exert his dominance over it (albeit producing counterpoint in his own inimitable style which could never for a second be mistaken for anyone else's).
However, speaking largely as a musical layman - and with a particular love and insatiable thirst for the music of J.S. Bach - I find it hard to believe that Bach didn't have exceptional grasp of counterpoint from an early age. I think I am right in saying that there isn't enough information surviving on Bach's early life - specifically with regard to his musical abilities, anyway - so I guess I'm speculating here. I only remember reading that in terms of his general academic performance, he wasn't noted as being anything exceptional....I just feel that MUSICALLY he must have been exceptional fairly early on; to me it seems as though counterpoint "ran through his veins" somehow.
Of course, I could be wrong 😏 and that's not to say that Mozart didn't also (along with Bach) have a solid grasp of counterpoint from an early age.
Putting five themes together at once and making it easy and pleasant to listen to...Now that is mastery of the craft of writing classical music. Well done Mozart!
Its the work of god
@@aidanchau1664 Think you misspelled Mozart there...
unbelievable that someone under the age of 36 could conceive of putting such a complicated mathematical piece of music together like this. I have heard people poh poh mozart as being easy to play. Well, they are wrong and verge on the side of simplicity when the opposite is the case. Thanks for this analysis, made even easier to understand with your highlighting.
and to think Mozart composed this and 3 other movmetns of this symphony along with 2 other greats 39 and 40 all within under 8 weeks!
In all likelihood he composed them across many years, I wouldn't be surprised if he had Jupiter brewing in his head for half his life. He was notorious for completing everything in his head before he even started writing it down. Mistakes are frighteningly scarce in his original manuscripts. Writing out music is tedious work, symphonies especially, I can easily imagine him putting it off until the 11th hour. And, I can't help but wonder what music he composed but never got around to writing down before he died.
Now as a bonus, compare his manuscripts to those of Beethoven, and you have yourself a fun contrast. Beethoven was the complete opposite, his manuscripts are so messy they sometimes border on undesipherable. Ink blots, scratched-out passages, rewritten parts and general incohesiveness litter the pages.
There are sketches of Mozart's that still exist, scholars use them to figure out how he wrote, and he would abandon pieces just as quick as anyone else if he didn't like where it was going. Many scratch papers were thrown away or used to warm the house during his life when the staffs were completely covered in ink scratches and cross outs, and if not completed works after Mozart's death.... paper was expensive, and so was heating coal and wood.
Also let's wrap our head around that all 3 symphonies were meant to be as one really big one. He wrote all 3 at same time and none of them commissioned. Lots of evidence, including the keys and structure that points to it being one big symphony. maybe it was a joke but there was a hint of intention there..
I’ve long thought this the greatest symphonic movement ever written, not because of its contrapuntal complexity (as explained in this video) but because of its translucent expressive directness and apparent inevitability. This is the music of Apollo.
Genius. Mozart could do anything! I can listen to that music hundreds of times and it never becomes stale. There is always a new harmony or combination of notes to delight me no matter how many times I hear it.
Mind blowing. The artistic technique lies in making all these transformations of themes and their inversions and yet make it appealing to the musical palette
I always loved this movement. Now I know why. Thank you for enriching my appreciation of this masterpiece.
Truly puts the “color” in “color commentary! (I genuinely could not resist - I regret nothing! NOTHING!)
But seriously, Thanks Richard - you have been (and continue to be) the music teacher for whom I would have selected “Music Appreciation” as my elective class in school.
NIRVANA, Richard, NIRVANA! I cannot thank you enough for this lucid, insightful and at once, simple analysis of my favorite Mozart Symphony's crowning movement!
Excellent analysis. The architecture of this movement is beyond brilliant. Astounding.
Magnificent analysis of the superb architecture of a music that can only be defined as being simply divine!!! Mozart equals Bach in mastering counterpoint and fugal structure. I was really moved to the heart.
After listening to screming electric guitars and synthesized music, which I have to admit, was part of it in my youth, this is very pleasing and refreshing to the ear.
Another five years, for that matter another year of life for Wolfgang Amadeus, just what would he have come up with in musical composition. Thank you for a peerless analysis and description of what you aptly describe as one of the most thrilling final movements to any symphony ever conceived. BRAVO!
Incomparable genius! Thanks so much for raising our level of appreciation of this masterpiece. (Mozart---Einstein?--
The greater genius?)
There are more ideas (not to mention expressions of transcendental feeling!) in this one movement than in most musical artists careers. Not a slight to the latter but rather appreciation of the gift that is Mozart's music. Truly awesome.
As a pianist I have rediscovered Mozart. I find it just absolutely wonderful. It just sounds so effortless. I know his last piano sonata is the contrapuntal one, and perhaps his most admired, but for now I enjoy playing some of the earlier ones (K311 and 332). Thank you so much for this analysis. It is amazing how such a listenable piece is yet so complex. It also reminds me a lot of Mendelssohn, who also for me has a similarly beautiful fluid motion - perhaps it is all the semi-quaver sections in the strings that enter in stretto like ways!
Wonderful analysis; the contrapuntal climax in the coda is breath-taking. Mozart the symphonist went out with a bang. Lots of Bach study behind it.
Dear Richard, this finale is a revelation to me. I am not musically educated and you have deepened my understanding of this great work. Thank you dearly. Einar, Reykjavik Iceland.
This is fantastic!!! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this video. This movement is the greatest piece of Western music of all time, for me. It sends me off to impossibly high realms. Herr Mozart, we salute you. God IN you!! For He opened the gates of Heaven on this one.
Thanks. in my opinion the greatest symphony ever
"Eroica" Symphony is far above this one.
I didn't know a timpani part with two notes could sound so great! Gotta love classical music. Excellent explaination!
Gabriel Harrison I love how timpani and horns/trumpets play exactly the same lines in the end, giving a real sense of "epic" and "scale" to the whole orchestra.
The analysis is just perfect, no other words to describe.
Percussion was idiomatically used as an "exclamation point" in Classical music, and of course, the tympani were typically tuned to the tonic and dominant to emphasize those two most important harmonies. I believe Beethoven's 9th was the first use of percussion as "free" instruments, and of course Mahler further liberated the percussion section, and then Messiaen...
I'm embarrassed that I am so late to the party in discovering this channel. A wonderful and clear analysis. Well and delightfully done!
An otherworldly explanation and narrative of Mozart's unfathomable brilliance. I feel enlightened after watching this piece. In fact, I was compelled to watch it three times to understand it. A great sleight of hand trick or an illusion, once explained, cannot be appreciated twice. Not so with Mozart's work. You only want to keep marveling at it, to keep listening, called to it again and again.
And now, thanks to your wonderful analysis, Haydn's remarks written to Franz Rott become much more understandable: "If only I could impress Mozart's inimitable works on the soul of every friend of music, and the souls of high personages in particular, as deeply, with the same musical understanding and with the same deep feeling, as I understand and feel them, the nations would vie with each other to possess such a jewel." Thank you for these deep insights into this divine work of art!
I'm coming back here over and over again. Thanks so much for your analysis!
Man, oh man, that's fantastic, Richard. A tour de force on your part...
I am a very late blooming amateur cellist in a terrific community college orchestra, and frankly, the least skilled player in the lot. I have been a professional abstract oil painter and mentor for decades, and studied law and literary criticism along the way, always with music in my ears. This analysis was by far the best I've experienced in any of the other disciplines, and the visual presentation and calming delivery was so welcome to my senses that I finally grasped what seemed impossibly inaccessible to me, up to now. Many thanks.
Thank you. After having heard the 41st so many times, this adds such depth to my perception of its beauty!
This guy is great. Love the colors to describe what's going on.
Thank you for your immense contribution to the preservation and deeper understanding of the absolute pinnacles of our Civilization, Richard Atkinson. I will always turn first to anything about Mozart, but of course the other great composers you consider are a delight to study, as well. Bravissimo!
In many passages, there is not accompagnamento, just the themes! Mozart in his last symphony turns out to be a kind of baroque poliphonic musician! Amazing!
Wow - as a person just beginning music theory, but many years of appreciating classical music, this is and incredibly lucid and well presented analysis of the piece. Thank you Richard!
This entire movement feels like an ending finale that just keeps getting better and better.
And when you think it's just going to do the typical ending, it does something amazing.
Remember hearing just a portion of it the first time a small audio clip. I thought it was the ending portion of the movement. When I finally got a download of the entire movement back in '98 or '99 (remember dial up?) I realized it as just the first section of the piece. Then the ending, I didn't know anything about fugue, so I remember thinking: you can do this with music? It sounds like like an infinite wall of interchanging melodies that compliment each other, not a bunch of noise but like a buffet that you can hop your ear around to which ever melody or stand back and listen to them together.
Since then, I'm always hoping for a finale that goes even longer with this fugue awesomeness.
Ode to Joy's fugue is pretty cool. I wish a Swedish orchestra that performed a Zelda medley would have done a fugue of as many themes as possible at the end.
It's like all time exists at once. Something amazing and special.
With today's composition software, it probably helps a lot to make such things.
The ending sounds like the making of a fugue but it's not :(
th-cam.com/video/YrpWBgB6oz8/w-d-xo.html
This is such a magnificent piece. When I hear this, I get a feeling of transcendence and uplift. Thanks for the analysis.
It requires a different kind of genius for composing such a masterpiece. Mozart was that genius!
Loved your in-depth analysis, Richard. I can now pay attention to the small details that Mozart has written.
👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Thank you!
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Listened to this gem for 45 years and never realized the 5 themes or the remarkable counterpoint between them. Thank you for an added great Mozart enlightenment!
so impressive work. thank you very much.
Ramesh Rai If I may join your thank you, I would like to add that people(composers ) could get all there techniques of 3 or 4 or 5 part harmonies, counterpoint overlaps correctly done but don't know if it would sound as beautiful as Mozart, J.S,Bach, and sons, Beethoven (to keep the list short) or for me as elegant as Mozart. He's been a favorite of mine since I happened on his music. thank you for posting, and Ramesh Rai, thanks for the space and uplifting Thank you of your own. all smiles
Hearing and now seeing the transcendent genius of Mozart in this magnificent movement while knowing the suffering he endured in the last years of his life, only brings tears - tears of deep respect and gratitude. Thank you Richard for helping make Wolfgang's genius visible.
I have watched this many, many times. It is wonderful to see and listen to your interpretations.
great work ! music only:
0:54-1:10
1:24-1:38
1:57-2:15
3:15-3:30
4:05:4:16
4:48-5:09
6:01-6:45
7:22-7:35
7:55-8:30
8:54-9:11
9:42-10:06
10:20-11:54
12:22-12:34
13:30-14:26
My hubby’s amazing!!
I love how Mozart squeezed two red motives into seven bars at the end of the invertible counterpoint section, quite an unexpected entry with respect to regular four-bar recurrence.
I like this movement so much! Mozart manages all the structural brilliance of Bach but transcends him by making it so full of excitement and emotion!
Good analysis. As a composer who likes to write fugues, and whose favorite compositional challenge is to made some works just from three-four-five notes melodic segment, I would add this: when we focus on something which can be called " micromotifs", the shortest elements/intervallic segments of motifs, this can be found:
- Theme 1 - C-D-F-E - is like an essence of European music since the Gregorian chant. Such melodic shape is called "cambiata", and it is beautifully balanced in interval directions. BTW, it appears in diverse forms in other movements of this symphony - first movement is based on C-D-G-F (symmetric pattern +2, +5, -2), menuet uses B-C-E-D (C major, +1, +4, -2), G#-A-C-B (A minor, symmetric +1, +3, -1) and D#-E-C#-D (symmetric +1, -3, +1). This one in the finale uses intervals 1, 2 and 3 (by number of halftones - pattern +2, +3, -1). Let's see it differently and even more focused - divided to two pairs of notes: ascending second and descending second. This will play an important role later.
- "Gray theme" is not so unimportant as probably you think, it is clearly connected to the first theme and derived from it when we analyze its intervallic structure. Maybe on some subliminal level but definitely there is a link. I see descending seconds A-G (bar 5-6) and F-E (bar 7), and descending tetrachord (bars 6+8) in the end is used in bars 9-12, 18, 30-31 and in Theme 2, also in fugato theme in bars 39-40, in vle+vclli+cb bar 54, in the third bar of Theme 4 and elsewhere. Ascending tetrachord is in vlni in bar 27, in vle 47-49, and we can see a link to ascending hexachord creating Theme 3. Let's not forget to mention a chromatic compression of tetrachord F#-G-G#-A in bars 80-82, and B-C-C#-D in bars 84-87, which clearly is in the relation as well as similar descending chromatic passages later in the work.
- Vle+Vclli+Cb whole notes F-E in bars 5-6 are the same as vlni bars 3-4. There's a descending second D-C in bar 7, and all four notes in bars 5-7 create descending tetrachord.
- Vlni in bar 8 - two descending tetrachords.
- Vle+Vclli+Cb in bars 22-24 play free inversion of Theme 2!
- Descending seconds appear in woodwinds in bars 9-10 and 11-12.
We can find much more relations of such short motivic segments in various shapes between all movements, when we analyze them in such small units and on the base of intervals and its directions. Such analysis of the basic "machine code" shows very well how a great composer like Mozart could work very efficiently and in minimalistic way with motifs, which is essentially important because works composed in this way show a great level of consistence and unity, but in the same time enough diversity, so it is not boring. Mozart was a master of this balance between unity and diversity.
And the gray motif is an instance of the Fate Motif, which is found in lots of pieces from Bach onwards, especially in minor keys, but Mozart uses it in this C Major symphony in both the first and last movements in interestingly, the opposite order in which it appears in Beethoven’s Fifth. In Beethoven’s Fifth, the first movement has the repeated notes form of the motif and the last movement has the scale version of the motif. In Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, the first movement has the scale form of the motif and the last movement has the repeated notes form of the motif.
Excellent & engaging dissection of Mozart's most thorough treatment of a symphonic movement
Hi Richard. This is a highly informative and hugely enjoyable video. It helps me to understand why I LOVE this movement so much.
The first four notes are an exercise in Johann Joseph Fuch's book on counterpoint. It is as if Mozart is showing us what unimaginable level of mastery he has achieved compared to his first confrontation with the exercise at a probably young age.
Richard, what a gift you have given to those of us who know and love this symphony, esp. the last movement, but don't know why we are hearing the magic that we are. I too, like ursin3 below, am overwhelmed, and grateful beyond measure for this enlargement of my very existence, let alone the movement. Thank you so much.
Fabulous work, Richard. This is the first video of yours that I've seen. I will now proceed to watch all of them!
I literally cried with the final coda.
can't believe what kind of fucking genius Mozart was
Brilliant! I've been searching for FORTY years for this explanation. I totally get it now. Magnificent. Haters be damned. This is brilliant.
An eye/ear opener.. thank you.. deeply appreciated by this Mozart fan..!!
Thank you for this marvellous video. I am sharing it on Facebook and encouraging my friends to look at it even if they can't read music.
Mozart’s fever dream, absolutely incredible
This was so cool! Thank you so much for taking the time to share!
Thank you for giving such a wonderful and thorough analysis of this mind boggling piece of genius. Yes, the five part invertible counterpoint Coda is truly amazing but what has always blown my mind is the ease at which Mozart transitions out of this fugal wonderland as though it were simple and obvious. Almost without a thought (at least it comes across that way to me) Mozart brings us back to end the piece with grace and power. How does one write oneself into a compositional corner only to get out of it with the equivalent of a "flick of the wrist"? For us "normal" humans it's just not fair.
Thank you so much for this! I have always been jealous of Mozart's ingenuity and when playing this piece a few years back before watching this video and getting to know the symphony more, I felt quite overwhelmed. This shows how beautifully simple yet complicated and lighthearted such a dense piece of music can be.
I am translating a book on great composers from English to Korean and I am here to figure out what the author was saying specifically about this movement as the contrapuntal culmination of Mozart's music. And I couldn't be more grateful for your hard work. It really enlightened me. Thank you very much.
That finale. How’s he throwing everything but the kitchen sink in there and it’s coming out like in perfect harmony. Must have been a real ball to construct. How anyone can think our universe was just randomly thrown together is insanity. It was/is designed.
Gracias!!
This is fantastic! Thank you so much for making the complexity comprehensible even to a musically uneducated person like me.
I'm literally Speechless
Fantastic work. Thanks for putting this together!
Listening with your commentary made it very interesting and satisfying. Thank you Richard.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I come back to this video again and again, when trying to explain to my children the magnificence of this symphony.
Stunning and fascinating. Thanks for sharing!
Just discovered your wonderful channel which helps us listening and approaching all these masterpieces with a new ear and a new eye ! THANK YOU !
superb masterpiece! no words...just Mozart. Thanks for the video! I really liked it!
I'm really enjoying this analysis. I''m a rock guy so I'm trying to understand ;-) Thanks you so much Mr. Atkinson. It's a little over my head.....put I'm paddling hard.
the theory of it is not hard to grasp...but applying it, and especially like Mozart or Bach did, is absolutely out of reach for "normal" musicians