Symphony No. 41 in C (Jupiter), K. 551

Words, my words at least, can do little to enhance a masterpiece like the Jupiter Symphony. Instead their goal must be mostly to complement (or compliment) the work and not detract from it. Indeed, so comprehensive is the work that almost any superlative, any flattering assessment, will ring true. In this symphony one will find the brilliant world of Mozart’s comic operas; one will find extremely dense cohesion and development that never sounds academic or forced; here, too, one will find sublime moments that break through the conventional fabric of galant 18th-century idioms. As this is the last of Mozart’s forty-one conventionally numbered symphonies, it is obvious that we are not dealing with a beginner. True, the boy Mozart was once the most famous musical prodigy alive. But by 1788 he had ripened to an artistic maturity rarely experienced. One of the joys attendant upon hearing the Jupiter Symphony is the chance to hear so much of what he has learned, to witness a culmination of so many experiences and imaginings.
Resplendent in C major, the opening Allegro vivace steps boldly upon the stage in three powerful strides. Within the first sixteen bars Mozart lays out several key motives that drive later action: first, the opening salvo with its uprising upbeats; second, the quiet answer that ingratiatingly ascends from C to G; and third, a confirmatory rounding off of C major with strong chords and descending five-note cascades. Compare the opening of his Overture to The Marriage of Figaro for a similar opera buffa sound, and perhaps you may also expect Figaro any moment to appear from off-stage, singing “Cinque . . . dieci . . .”
Already in the sonata-form transition, motives are recombining. The delightful second theme manipulates the “ingratiating” motive, inverts it to go downward, and even uses it as a bassline. This is Mozart at play. However hard that picture is to square with his straitened personal circumstances, musical joy nevertheless radiates from every bar. From that very joy springs the moment of maximum drama: a grand pause, silence, and a tutti explosion of C minor. This tempest slides gracefully into another comic melody to close off the exposition. Having thus usurped two of the development’s main roles (motivic evolution and tonal contrast), Mozart may have left nothing in reserve. But have no fear! Without preparation, Mozart veers quickly into the remote world of E-flat major and begins to harmonically sequence his material through G minor to a false recapitulation in F. Quiet dynamics hint that this reprise is premature; a long chromatic descent—with magical combination of both rising and falling gestures from the movement’s opening—leads to the dominant pedal. The gentle glide to a true recapitulation, back home in C major, is quintessential Mozart. With the heavy work over, listeners can use the recapitulation to take in the richness that may have passed too quickly during the exposition.
Not surprisingly, given the scale of activity in the first and fourth movements, the Jupiter’s two inner movements invariably fall into the shadows in most commentary. But the work would suffer if all four movements demanded an equal level of intellectual effort. The Andante Cantabile and Minuet & Trio sacrifice nothing in craftsmanship. They simply set themselves different goals and fulfill different roles from the outer movements. For instance, the Andante is a sarabande; note the consistent emphasis on the second beat in 3/4 meter and dotted rhythms. Set in F major with muted strings, it echoes the famous middle movement of Mozart’s C-Major Piano Concerto, K. 467 (“Elvira Madigan”). In both works the mood seems to look inward. To me, at least, the Jupiter’s stage world seems very far away, as if the lead character is now seen completely out of character, engaging in some kind of inner meditation. Turns into minor keys and periodic recurrences of the main theme, in various states of decoration, all serve a reflective tone—inward facing rather than outward.
The aside being over, the Minuet and Trio pushes us back out in front of the footlights and injects a moment of graceful formality. The Minuet features a chromatic theme and expressive contrasts between winds and strings—a pattern that Beethoven would find to his liking. The Trio opens with the sound of closure before proceeding into A minor and reprising the Minuet. As mentioned, such a movement provides vital contrast. Its formal regularity acts like an anchor stabilizing the whole symphony before the truly extravagant flights explored in the finale. But even more, Mozart foreshadows the finale’s four-note main theme during the Trio. Not easily recognized, it occurs on different scale steps (si-la-do-ti).
The Molto Allegro finale is nothing short of a masterpiece, filled with memorable themes, contrapuntal interested and dramatic scene changes. Overall, its mood recalls the extroverted good cheer of the first movement. Its primary themes are similarly laid out quickly in the opening paragraph: the broad expansive C-D-F-E fugue theme in long whole notes; the active response; and the comic pattern of the repeated dominant-tonic cadences. The sonata-form second theme suggests an inversion of the fugue theme, an idea not fully explored until the very end of the work. Already in the tail end of the second theme, Mozart begins to develop his material. There is a true (albeit brief) development that moves quickly through various related keys. Its most important facet is that it ends on the dominant of E minor, thus pointing to further excursions. But in the span of five glorious seconds, Mozart dismantles the suggestion of E minor, lands on G major (as the home dominant), and this most quicksilver of returns launches the recapitulation.
The only remaining challenge for Mozart is to close off this finale, which seems intent upon perpetuating itself into ever-new episodes. The coda becomes the place for a grand working out of the movement’s various motives into a five-part fugue. Five-part fugues are incredibly challenging. Yet we are not talking about five statements of the same theme in various voices. Instead, this coda simultaneously overlaps five different themes that were presented earlier in the movement: the first theme, second theme, counterposed themes, tail ends and incipits, cadential patter—it all comes crashing together. And the music can bear such strain for only a short time. Mozart realizes that to sustain this complexity more than a half-minute would turn the sublime into the ridiculous as quickly as wise, benevolent Jupiter himself could transform into the tyrannical hurler of thunderbolts. In fully satisfying fashion, the ensemble comes together to close the entire symphony with a vibrant C-major cadence.

(c) Jason Stell