Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte treat the Don Juan story through an unstable mixture of comedy, social conflict, and supernatural judgment. Servants and aristocrats pursue different plans while the central character...

Eine kleine Nachtmusik is a string serenade whose familiar opening combines a forceful arpeggio with an immediate answering gesture. Its surviving movements include a Romanze, minuet and trio, and a lively finale....

Mozart's D-minor concerto opens with restless orchestral motion before the soloist introduces a contrasting idea. It is one of only two of his original piano concertos in a minor key. The central Romance creates a...

Mozart's C-major concerto sets a ceremonial orchestral manner beside delicate exchanges with the piano. The famous slow movement is only one part of a work whose outer movements are more animated and dramatic. Like...

Mozart gives this A-major concerto a particularly warm wind sound by using clarinets in the ensemble. Its lyrical first movement is followed by a slow movement in F-sharp minor, an unusual key in his output. The...

Mozart's final Requiem survives as a mixture of completed music, unfinished sections, and additions made after his death. The commission was associated with Count Franz von Walsegg's memorial for his wife. Constanze...

Mozart's first G-minor symphony opens with repeated syncopations and angular melodic motion. The expanded horn group adds weight to the orchestra, while contrasting sections show a growing command of longer...

Mozart's A-major symphony achieves considerable variety with a relatively small orchestra. The first movement begins quietly with a distinctive octave gesture, allowing the music to gather energy rather than announce...

Mozart first wrote this music for a Salzburg celebration honoring the Haffner family in 1782. He then reshaped it for a Vienna concert as a four-movement symphony, removing celebratory material and adding flute and...

Mozart wrote the Linz Symphony during an unplanned stop in that city in 1783, when a concert required a new orchestral work at short notice. It was his first symphony to open with a slow introduction. Four movements...

Mozart brought this symphony to Prague, where The Marriage of Figaro had been enthusiastically received. The work has three movements and no minuet, but its long opening introduction and intricate main movement give...

Mozart's E-flat symphony begins with a substantial slow introduction before the main movement gains momentum. Its orchestral color is distinctive because clarinets replace the oboes used in many of his symphonies....

Mozart's G-minor symphony belongs to the three symphonies he completed in the summer of 1788. Its opening melody begins over an already moving accompaniment rather than a grand ceremonial introduction. A later...

Mozart's last symphony combines ceremonial gestures with graceful lyricism and a finale famous for its contrapuntal craft. Small musical ideas that first seem straightforward are made to coexist in increasingly...

The Magic Flute combines spoken dialogue, comic episodes, ceremonial music, and demanding vocal display. Mozart wrote it for Emanuel Schikaneder's theatrical company, with Schikaneder creating the role of Papageno....

The Marriage of Figaro adapts Beaumarchais's play through Lorenzo Da Ponte's libretto. A single day's deceptions place servants and aristocrats in shifting relationships of power, desire, and misunderstanding....

The Fifth Violin Concerto experiments with changes of tempo and character inside its movements. The soloist's first entrance briefly slows the opening before joining its lively flow. A graceful minuet frames the...