Mozart - Symphony No.8 in D Major, K. 48 (Complete)

The Symphony No. 8 in D major, (K. 48), by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is dated December 13, 1768. It was written in Vienna, at a time when the family were already due to have returned home to Salzburg. In a letter to his friend in Salzburg, Lorenz Hagenauer, Leopold Mozart says of the delay that "we could not bring our affairs to a conclusion earlier, even though I endeavored strenuously to do so."

The autograph of the Symphony No. 8 is today preserved in the Staatsbibliothek Preusischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin. The symphony is in four movements, and is scored for two oboes, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. The inclusion of trumpets and timpani is unusual for Mozart's early symphonies.

It has described as a "ceremonial work". There are four movements:
1. Allegro, 3/4
2. Andante, 2/4
3. Menuetto and Trio, 3/4
4. Molto allegro, 12/8
The first movement begins with downward leaps on the violins and follows with scale figures. These sets of figures alternate between strings and winds.
The second movement is for strings alone and begins with a narrow melodic range which expands toward the end.

The third movement is a Minuet full of rapid string passages, and includes the trumpets and timpani, but not during the Trio.
The final movement is a gigue, whose main theme unusually does not end the movement.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 -- 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era.

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty.

At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly.

While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.

He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

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