Symphony No. 29 in A major, K.201

I. Allegro moderato. The violins begin quietly with a theme that steps down an octave and then climbs back, each phrase answered by the rest of the strings. Nothing is loud at first, and the whole movement grows from that falling shape, which returns at the end as a firm, full-orchestra statement.

II. Andante. Muted violins, a walking bass, and a mood closer to an opera love scene than a symphony. Listen for the little snapped rhythms that decorate the tune and for the horns, which sit low and warm underneath rather than calling attention to themselves.

III. Menuetto and Trio. A dance built on a jabbing dotted rhythm, short-long, short-long, that gives the music a slightly military stiffness. The middle section (the trio) drops to strings and lets a smooth, quieter tune take over before the opening dance returns exactly as before.

IV. Allegro con spirito. The fastest music in the piece. Violins scurry upward in rapid runs, the horns punch out hunting calls, and the orchestra keeps interrupting itself with sudden silences. The end arrives with a rising rush and two blunt chords, more grin than grandeur.

Mozart dated the score April 1774, when he was eighteen and working in Salzburg for the archbishop, writing music for the court and the cathedral. This symphony belongs to a run of instrumental works from those years at home between the long journeys of his childhood. No record of a first performance survives, and the piece would have been played by the modest forces available in Salzburg, perhaps two dozen players. Like most of Mozart's early symphonies it dropped out of sight after his death in 1791 and returned only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, once complete editions made the scores available. Conductors took to it because it sounds like an adult work rather than a promising one, and because its small orchestra, strings with two oboes and two horns, suits chamber orchestras. It is now the most frequently played of Mozart's symphonies written before he moved to Vienna.