WHY DID MOZART WRITE THESE SYMPHONIES?
It’s a hot summer in 1788. I imagine a worried Wolfgang Mozart sitting in his favourite place: in the fresh air, in the garden of the cheaper apartment he has just rented outside Vienna. He is surrounded by family pets and stray cats. The war has made earning enough money extremely difficult. He, Constanza and three-year-old Karl are mourning the death a few weeks earlier of his beloved six-month-old daughter, Theresia.
​
His closest friends, who had all returned to London the year before, have been writing letters begging him to join them in their city
where musicians currently make a relative fortune. A city which for Wolfgang is filled with cherished memories. I see him caught between wanting to return to England so as to finally reap the financial rewards for all his hard work and the imperative to generate enough money to provide for the immediate needs of his family.
​
He writes these two symphonies (and number 39) in only a few weeks that hot summer while also writing other smaller works to produce more immediate income.
​
For many years scholars have speculated as to why there is no clear record that he ever heard these symphonies performed. He was to live for another three-and-a-half years. Many believe that he was saving their first performances for his arrival in London, to prove to its discerning audiences that he was the best living composer in Europe. It was a plan which sadly never happened.
​
I think of these works as his London Symphonies.