Wednesday, March 9, 2016

The Final Three Symphonies - Mozart's Apotheosis?

In a little over a third of a century, the stamp of Mozart was assembled,  then  applied  indelibly upon the brow of history by way of certification in  "The Magic Flute," the magnificent final statement in his final year. Within the space  of a generation, Mozart's  galvanic powers brought the Classical period  of musical language into stylistic reality and focus sufficient for the stage to be set for the examination of human emotion for its own sake-  we call it Romanticism.
With all of the above, I go back  to the year 1788, three years before his death, in order to witness what I consider a blindingly  unique  configuration of events I find impossible to equal in terms historical:
In a period of about nine weeks, Mozart produced his final three symphonies - these three symphonies appear to represent a  compendium of the core meaning of his language and level of attainment making for the possibility  of the ensuing Romantic Period to take shape.
For me, with full recognition of the importance and impact which his glorious "Magic Flute" bestows upon the ongoing saga of music history, I find myself drawn back to one summer in 1788, which  forever gives the reality of human attainment within the walls of three magnificent structures which give us, for example,  the almost unbelievable probability that the composer never heard a performance of  these  miracles, and at the same time graces us with the Improbable; namely, five-part counterpoint at a time when no such endeavor was expected.
Within the course of speculation, when the last three years; almost a tenth of the composer's life span, appear with no additional symphony, did Mozart assert to himself that  it would be impossible to attempt  another work in that form, simply because he knew  that, for him, the symphonic horizon had been reached?  How intriguing it is to know that a little boy of ten began writing symphonies, lived 0nly thirty five years, and wrote no symphonies from the fall of 1788 to his farewell year of 1791...

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