Symphony No. 31 in D Major

Mozart’s “Paris” Symphony (No. 31 in D major) was carefully tailored to French taste. Arriving in Paris in 1778, he quickly secured a commission to write a symphony for the city’s top concert-giving organisation, the Concert Spirituel. Their orchestra was the largest Mozart had ever written for, with trumpets as well as horns, and a pair of fashionable new clarinets to experiment with. In a series of letters to his father he described how he composed the work and how it was received. Mozart explained how Parisians loved a big, impressive opening with the whole orchestra playing in unison, beginning with a series of short chords followed by a rising scale—which is exactly what he gave them (“Allegro assai”). The slow movement was criticised for being too full of ideas, and so he provided a replacement for the second performance. Both slow movements survive: the second (a longer 6/8 “Andante”) is usually performed today, though Mozart considered the two versions equal, though different in character. Following Parisian fashion there is no minuet third movement. Mozart told his father that Parisians liked their finales to start noisily. So, for added impact, he decided to defy expectations and start quietly—before suddenly turning up the volume. This “Allegro” is a dramatic combination of opposites: there’s a running joke about sudden contrasts of loud and soft, interleaved with lots of comic opera bustle and echoes of Mozart’s recent fugal studies.