Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183, was written by the then 17-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in October 1773, shortly after the success of his opera seria Lucio Silla. It was supposedly completed in Salzburg on October 5, a mere two days after the completion of his Symphony No. 24, although this remains unsubstantiated. This is one of two symphonies Mozart composed in G minor, sometimes referred to as the “little G minor symphony”. The other is the Symphony No. 40.
“It is probably still a popular misconception that many of [Mozart’s] great works date from early youth – but while it is true that there are flashes of inspiration in many of the early works, the first which has a firm footing in the modern repertoire is the… G-minor Symphony, K. 183, written when he was seventeen. Nevertheless, the shade of ‘the prodigy of Salzburg’ has come to haunt two centuries of musically talented children and the lids of chocolate boxes.” John Stone, in The Mozart Companion, edited by H. C. Robbins Landon (Borders Press, 1990). This “firm footing” was achieved, in part, through the Romantic era’s concept of K. 183 as angry and atypical, as bursting the bounds of the putative Classical dictates of suppression of the darker emotions and dedication to “style” above feeling.
Mozart was a keen student of Haydn’s symphonies, and the latter’s G-minor must have served as a model for the first of the younger composer’s two symphonies in that dark key (the second is, of course, the super-familiar No. 40, K. 550, dating from 1788), not least for its scoring for four horns instead of the usual two of the Classical orchestra. The horn quartet – a pair each in B-flat and G – is employed in K. 183 to add weight to the overall sonority, and more importantly to supply the chromatic textures virtually impossible to achieve with the valveless instrument of the time.
The symphony is laid out in standard classical form:
- Allegro con brio, 44 in G minor
- Andante, 24 in E-flat major
- Menuetto & Trio, 34 in G minor, Trio in G major
- Allegro, 44 in G minor
The Symphony opens with a splendidly theatrical falling diminished seventh – the prelude to a drama that unfolds rather like the storm scenes of operas of the time. This is tense, terse music, marked by fierce syncopation, pregnant silences, and a powerful bass line, the last employed for melodic purposes rather than as mere accompaniment. The ensuing Andante is again operatic, but this time in the form of an aria, notable for the sweetly sad appoggiaturas of the opening measures and the imaginatively scored dialogues for violins (muted) and bassoons that follow. The minuet is far removed from the ballroom: a stern, stomping affair, announced by the bare octaves of the full orchestra, with relief coming in the form of a gently rustic trio, scored for wind band. In the finale, the composer returns to the driven, hectoring mood of the opening movement – intensified here by even greater compression and precipitate dynamic shifts.
The first movement plays over the opening credits of Amadeus, the 1984 Oscar-winning biographical film about Mozart. This version was recorded by The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and Neville Marriner. Beginning in the 1990s, the Titan Company (an Indian manufacturer of fashion accessories) released several television advertisements for their Quartz line of watches. Oglivy & Mather, the agency that produced the advertisements, selected a phrase from Allegro con brio as the theme music. These advertisements became iconic and helped popularise the brand. Several versions were produced aside from the traditional arrangement, like one played solely on the piano. Titan also produced an advertisement featuring an electronic backing track overlaid with the theme played on several Indian musical instruments by renowned musicians. These included Ravi Shankar on the sitar and the father-son duo of Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain on the tabla.
