Mozart - Symphony No.9 in C Major, K. 73

Symphony No. 9 in C major, K. 73/75a, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, has an uncertain provenance. The most likely date of its composition appears to be late 1769 or 1770, during Mozart's first Italian journey, although some authorities have dated it "probably not before early summer 1772".

It may have been started in Salzburg before the first Italian journey began, and completed during the trip. The symphony is in four movements, and is Mozart's first in the key of C major. There is no information concerning which of the many Italian concerts given by the Mozarts during this visit saw this symphony's first performance. The autograph score is today preserved in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków.

The symphony is scored for 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, harpsichord and strings. There are four movements.
1. Allegro, 4/4
2. Andante, 2/4
3. Menuetto and Trio, 3/4
4. Molto allegro, 2/4.

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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