It seems that Classical (as opposed to classical) music doesn’t get much love here, so here’s something to bring it back a little.

Mozart’s Symphony 40 is among his best known works, not only to classical music buffs, but to the world at large. The opening strains to the first movement (represented graphically by YouTuber smalin, whose videos I’ve used before) seem to evoke something ambiguously iconic of classical music, almost programmatic in a way without an explicit image.

Symphony 40, K. 550, was the second to last symphony written by the composer before his early death, and was written as part of the group of the final three symphonies, the final one being the famous “Jupiter” Symphony. For all the cliché that has come to lighten the seriousness of these works, they fall in a time when Mozart was experimenting more and more with tonal centers in the music and playing with the norms and tropes of his contemporaries. The opening movement here represents a forward looking technique, as well, as it begins with an accompaniment rather than theme, something found in some Romantic music.

A livelier, excellent recording on Spotify by Sir Neville Marriner conducting The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.