Mozart: Symphonies No. 35 & 36, Haffner - Linz

Belohlavek, Jiři, Prague Philharmonia

HMC 901891

"I could, of course, scribble on it all day long, but such a thing comes into the world, and I want to be sure that I should not be ashamed when my name is written on it," W. A. Mozart once wrote to his father, thus refuting even the fairy tale of the godlike genius who effortlessly wrote down his music, as it were, according to the dictates of supernatural powers. • Mozart married his Constanze in Vienna on August 4, 1782. The father Leopold had resisted this marriage until the very end, convinced that the bride's family - Bohemians for his terms - would be a bad influence on his son. Leopold Mozart was wrong, Constanze was a loving wife to her husband during the nine years of their marriage. In other respects, too, only successes could be reported from Vienna to Salzburg, which, however, also unduly delayed the young couple's due inaugural visit to their father and sister. In July 1783 Wolfgang and Constanze finally set off on their journey to Salzburg, it was high time - the tone of the fatherly admonitions to set off for their old homeland gradually became sharp. • In 1782, which was as eventful as it was busy, an order from Salzburg was received by letter: Mozart was to write a festive music for the family of Salzburg's mayor Haffner, as he had already delivered it in 1776 with the Haffner Serenade. Somewhat reluctantly he submitted to the duty and composed another serenade. However, the musical qualities of the piece filled him with such pride that a few months later he asked for the notes from Salzburg to Vienna to make his Haffner Symphony out of tchem. • On the journey home to Vienna in autumn, Linz was one of the many stops on the itinerary. A concert was scheduled; however, the young maestro had no music in his luggage! For solo performances this was no problem, Mozart was a master of improvisation, but a concert without a symphony was something that a young composer of the musical avant-garde could not afford. "And because I don't have a single symphony with me, I am writing a new one head over heels," Mozart told his father after Salzburg. Well, this rush is not to be heard in the Linz Symphony, it is one of the highlights of Mozart's symphonic œuvre.

CD x 1

Harmonia Mundi

8/10/05

794881781928