Mozart: The 'Jupiter' Symphony

Cambridge Music Handbooks

by Elaine R. Sisman

This guide to Mozart's last and most celebrated symphony explores the historical background and aesthetic context of the work as well as the music itself. The early chapters examine the expectations of the symphony in Mozart's Vienna, Mozart's career in 1788 – the year of the three last symphonies - and the changing reception of the 'Jupiter' over the subsequent two hundred years. A separate chapter is then devoted to each movement of the symphony with musical discussion illuminated by a broad array of topics. Finally, a lucid exposition of rhetoric reveals the connections between elevated and learned styles and the sublime, enabling the reader to grasp the effect Mozart's music had upon his contemporaries.

132 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 1993

Reviews

[?0?0?0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indispensable overview and reference guide to Mozart's wonderful, "Jupiter Symphony". Fans of the symphony will enjoy the first half while the second half, an accessible and, for the slim size of the book, exhaustive dive into nearly every note of Mozart's last symphony.

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book that is supposed to focus on the Jupiter Symphony, the author spends a lot of time focusing on other works by Mozart and even other composers.