We have all heard of Mozart. In his short life (1756 –1791), he produced music of immense beauty and range. He was a child prodigy and started composing music from the age of five. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that “posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years.”
The piece featured here is the first movement of Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183/173dB, written by Mozart when he was 17 years old. It was supposedly completed in Salzburg a mere two days after the completion of his Symphony No. 24, although this remains unsubstantiated. The first movement was used as the opening music of Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus.
This is one of two symphonies Mozart composed in G minor, sometimes referred to as the “little G minor”. The other is Symphony No.40.
(Adapted from Wikipedia).
