Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Written during the stifled Salzburg years under Colloredo, this is the first work in which he set aside boyish cheer and revealed passion.

• At the opening of the first movement, the urgent syncopated rhythm of an orchestra joined by four horns creates a tension unheard in his earlier symphonies.
• Works in this G-minor vein, leading with passion and conflict, would later be called the 'Sturm und Drang' (storm and stress) style, and this symphony is counted among its signature pieces.
• It became widely known through its use in the opening of the film 'Amadeus,' and performers often remark that it is in fact the work of a seventeen-year-old boy.
• In the second movement the muted strings carry on as if in a whisper—a passage worth hearing for the stillness it sets against the turbulence before it.

Written in the year he lost his mother in Paris, it is one of his few minor-key piano sonatas.

• From the very first bar of the first movement, the chords hammered out again and again by the left hand are often said to sound as uneasy as a pounding heart.
• The passage in the development where the right hand races up and down is a notorious trap for tangled fingers, infamous among performers.
• The second movement is calm and songlike until it suddenly turns into a violent minor key midway, and many performances interpret this abrupt shift as a moment of welling grief.
• The coda of the third movement rushes headlong to its close, leaving, some say, an impression closer to resignation than to mourning.

An opera premiered in the year he married Constanze; its plot, in which a lover is rescued from bondage, reads as an echo of his own situation.

• Osmin's bass aria descends to a range strikingly low for its day, and it is famous as a passage that tests a bass singer's power.
• Constanze's aria 'Martern aller Arten' (the character even shares a name with his real wife) is packed with dazzling coloratura and ranks among the most daunting pieces for sopranos.
• The overture, with its Turkish-style percussion and winds, captures the exotic taste then fashionable in Vienna (the vogue for all things Turkish) and is well worth a listen.
• The story goes that the emperor said “Too many notes,” and it is fascinating to seek out the passages where wind lines and vocal melodies are tightly interwoven.

The first fruit of his partnership with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, its plot satirizing rank and oppression is not unconnected to his own experience of being treated as a court servant.

• The overture, driving forward at a relentless tempo, heralds the commotion of the whole opera, and since conductors differ markedly in their speed, comparing recordings is a pleasure in itself.
• Cherubino's aria 'Non so più' is singled out as a passage that captures an adolescent boy's thrill and unease in a melody of short, breathless phrases.
• In the letter duet of Act III, the voices of the Countess and Susanna follow one another at close intervals and overlap, and that exquisite misalignment makes it a scene performers still talk about.
• The finale is a large-scale ensemble in which the conflicts of many characters unravel simultaneously on a single stage, often cited as the summit of opera buffa technique.

Unlike 'Figaro', which met a lukewarm reception in Vienna, this work was embraced with fervor in Prague, an opera dedicated to the city that had captivated him.

• The opening chord of the overture is a heavy harmony foreshadowing the statue's appearance late in the drama, sounding in advance the fateful atmosphere of the entire opera.
• In the final scene, as the statue drags Don Giovanni down to hell, the trombone chords, a timbre rarely used in the opera of the day, are famous as the point where terror finds its voice.
• 'La ci darem la mano' is a duet of seduction, beloved above all for the way the two voices trade phrases as if answering each other.
• The Champagne Aria demands breathlessly rapid delivery of the text, and baritones count it among the most difficult pieces in the repertoire.

Completed within just a few weeks, together with his last three symphonies, in the summer of 1788, when his patronage had dried up and he was beset by debt.

• The first theme of the first movement begins with the violins whispering breathlessly over a hushed viola accompaniment, and this restless opening is counted among the best-known melodies in all of classical music.
• In the development, where a short motif migrates from voice to voice and collides with itself, one can savor the contrapuntal tension.
• Beneath the surface calm of the slow second movement lie harmonies that slip by semitones, and some critics say it is hard to hear it as simply bright.
• It is also often noted that Mahler and other later composers reinterpreted this symphony as the archetype of Romantic anguish and loved to conduct it.

A German-language opera created with his fellow Freemason Schikaneder, in which, in the year of his death, he brought the ideals of brotherhood and enlightenment to the stage.

• The Queen of the Night's aria 'Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen' requires the soprano to race up and down an extremely high register, making it one of the most difficult pieces in the history of opera.
• Papageno's entrance aria sets a simple melody over an orchestral accompaniment that imitates the sound of panpipes, portraying the character's common-folk nature just as he is.
• The threefold chords that recur in the overture and the temple scenes are widely interpreted as a symbol drawn from Masonic ritual.
• In the Act II scene where Tamino passes through his trials, shifting colors in the winds and percussion, symbolizing fire and water, depict the progress of the ordeal.

Begun on commission from an anonymous patron and left unfinished in the end, it is said to have been regarded by the bedridden composer as a requiem for himself.

• The opening 'Requiem aeternam' begins with low, sunken strings and bassoons bearing down heavily, foreshadowing the dark coloring of the whole work.
• The 'Lacrimosa' is the passage of which he wrote only eight bars before he died, and where it gives way to the remainder completed by his pupil Süssmayr is still debated among scholars.
• The 'Dies irae' is a passage in which the chorus pours forth in a rushing torrent, a figuration that paints the terror of the Last Judgment bearing down.
• The trombone solo of the Tuba mirum symbolizes the trumpet announcing the Judgment, and critics say its low, rich timbre evokes the slow approach of death.