Mozart 25th Symphony
- Thread starter mathman
- Start date
As near as I can tell.
Mozart at seventeen, drawing from Haydn, Wanhal, and the Sturm und Drang musical style, throwing down as fast as he can—the symphony was allegedly completed over the course of two days—in rhythm and key outside his usual range, it probably is coincidental that we might hear something akin to klezmer, which term originates in the late sixteenth century, and emerged as a musical style in the seventeenth century. A wiki narrative skips from Poland in the seventeenth century to Europe and the U.S. in the nineteenth century; we can for the moment attend the implication that for much of the period, much of the klezmer development occurred in closer circles under Hasidic influence. Many Jewish musicians during that interim period seem to have been working in more diverse muscial circles. Historically, the prospect that Khandoshkin, or particular folk music, both having influence in klezmer development, might have influenced Mozart in 1773 is not really so impossible. Toward that, a seventeen year-old prodigy compiling and composing at full speed will drop in a lot of components familiar to their repertoire. The prospect of common ground with klezmer or its approximately contemporaneous Bessarabian infusion, in Symphony No. 25 would likely be more a coincidental or envirionmental result than any particular, deliberate tribute.
But that is entirely speculative.
I figured, on "Hava Nagila". I'm not very familiar with the piece, and was listening through it with nasty compression on an excremental laptop speaker. I tend to think if Mozart had been deliberate about lifting a particularly Jewish-associated theme, he wouldn't have been able to keep his mouth shut about it, and we would have some more definitive record.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
According to Wiki, the melody of Hava Nagila was composed in 1918: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hava_Nagila. which would mean that any influence was from Mozart to it, rather than from it to Mozart.
1918 was the date of composition in its present form, but the melody is much older. The Mozart symphony movement appears to have a piece from the middle of the song 'uru achim bellev sameach'.. The full melody itself was composed after 1800.
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I have it in my collection. Listen to the 4th movement and compare to the middle of hava nagila. My (wild) guess - it originally was a gypsy melody. Gypsies were all over Europe, including Russia (Jews) and Austria (Mozart).
I can't be that surprised about the appearance of folk music in the published works of Mozart.
Apparently Bach, Handel, Vivaldi et al. borrowed ideas from the gypsies and other folk dance music.
It's fairly easy to spot too. e.g. Bach's Passacaglia is supposedly based on funeral music.
Apparently Bach, Handel, Vivaldi et al. borrowed ideas from the gypsies and other folk dance music.
It's fairly easy to spot too. e.g. Bach's Passacaglia is supposedly based on funeral music.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Funeral music? Where do you get that from? The first half of Bach's theme is certainly from Andre Raison's Messe du Deuziesme Ton, but I'm not aware this was intended for a funeral:
https://musescore.com/k_kobayashi/andre-raison-s-passacaille
It's in the bass, 1st line.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Yes, I see what you mean. How curious.