Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (German: [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ amaˈdeːʊs ˈmoːtsaʁt], English see fn.; 27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, 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, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position. 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.

G minor

G minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B♭, C, D, E♭, and F. For the harmonic minor scale, the F is raised to F♯. Its relative major is B-flat major, and its parallel major is G major.

Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary. G minor is one of two flat key signatures that require a sharp for the leading-tone (the other is D minor).

Mozart's use of G minor

G minor has been considered the key through which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart best expressed sadness and tragedy, and many of his minor key works are in G minor, such as the Piano Quartet No. 1 and the String Quintet in G minor. Though Mozart touched on various minor keys in his symphonies, G minor is the only minor key he used as a main key for his numbered symphonies (No. 25, and the famous No. 40). In the Classical period, symphonies in G minor almost always used four horns, two in G and two in B-flat alto. Another convention of G minor symphonies observed in Mozart's No. 25 was the choice of E-flat major for the slow movement, with other examples including Haydn's No. 39 and Johann Baptist Wanhal's G minor symphony from before 1771 (Bryan Gm1).

Classical music

Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical (religious) and secular music. While a similar term is also used to refer to the period from 1750-1820 (the Classical period), this article is about the broad span of time from roughly the 11th century to the present day, which includes the Classical period and various other periods. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period. The major time divisions of classical music are as follows: the early music period, which includes the Medieval (500–1400) and the Renaissance (1400–1600) eras; the Common practice period, which includes the Baroque (1600–1750), Classical (1750–1820), and Romantic eras (1804–1910); and the 20th century (1901–2000) which includes the modern (1890–1930) that overlaps from the late 19th-century, the high modern (mid 20th-century), and contemporary or postmodern (1975–2015) eras.

Symphony No. 25

Symphony No. 25 may refer to:

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven (ⁱ/ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈbeɪˌtoʊvən/, /ˈbeɪtˌhoʊvən/; German: [ˈluːtvɪç fan ˈbeːtˌhoˑfn̩]; baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis and an opera, Fidelio.

Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn, and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.