Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Written during the suppressed years under Colloredo in Salzburg, it is the piece in which he first revealed passion in place of boyish good cheer.

• In the opening of the first movement, the urgent syncopation created by eight French horns generates a tension unseen in his earlier symphonies.
• Works in G minor that foreground passion and conflict like this one later came to be called 'Sturm und Drang' (storm and stress), and this symphony is counted among its representative works.
• 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.
• The second movement continues in a whisper from muted strings, worth hearing as a point of contrast between passion and the stillness that follows.

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

• From the very first bar of the first movement, the pounding, repeated chords in the left hand are often described as sounding as anxious as a heartbeat.
• In the development section, the passage where the right hand races up and down is notorious among performers as a treacherous stretch where fingers easily tangle.
• The second movement is calm and songlike before suddenly turning into a turbulent minor key midway through, a shift many performers interpret as a moment when grief overwhelms him.
• The closing section of the third movement rushes to an end at breakneck speed, leaving an impression closer to resignation than mourning, in the view of some.

Premiered the year he married Constanze, this opera's plot of rescuing a lover from captivity reads as an echo of his own circumstances.

• Osmin's bass aria descends to a range startlingly low for its time, and it is famous as a passage that tests the power of a bass singer's voice.
• Constanze's aria (the character shares her name with his real-life wife) 'Martern aller Arten' is packed with brilliant coloratura and ranks among sopranos' most feared showpieces.
• The overture, with its Turkish-style percussion and winds, is worth hearing for how directly it captures the exotic taste for alla turca style then fashionable in Vienna.
• Legend has it the emperor said, "Too many notes," and it's fascinating to listen for the passages where the wind and vocal lines really do overlap densely.

It was the first fruit of his collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, and its plot satirizing class and oppression is not unrelated to his own experience of being treated as a servant at court.

• The overture, driven by a relentless, fast tempo, foreshadows the turmoil of the whole drama, and the tempo varies noticeably from conductor to conductor, making it fun to compare recordings.
• Cherubino's aria "I no longer know" is considered a passage that captures a teenage boy's excitement and anxiety in a melody of short, breathless phrases.
• In the Act 3 letter duet, the voices of the Countess and Susanna chase and overlap each other at short intervals, and this intricate near-miss is a celebrated moment often discussed among performers.
• The finale is a large-scale ensemble in which the conflicts among many characters are resolved simultaneously on stage, often cited as the pinnacle of opera buffa technique.

Unlike Figaro, which received a lukewarm reception in Vienna, this opera was received with enthusiasm in Prague, and it was dedicated to the city that had captivated him.

• The overture's opening chord is a weighty harmony foreshadowing the statue's appearance late in the drama, giving an early taste of the opera's fateful mood.
• In the final scene, where the statue drags Don Giovanni down to hell, the trombone chords use a timbre rarely heard in opera of the time, famous for expressing sheer terror.
• "Là ci darem la mano" is a seductive duet, beloved for the passage where the two voices answer each other back and forth.
• The champagne aria demands breathlessly fast delivery of the text, and is regarded among baritones as one of the most challenging pieces in the repertoire.

It was completed in the summer of 1788, within just a few weeks, alongside his final three symphonies, while his patronage had dried up and he was beset by debt.

• The first movement's opening theme begins with the violins whispering breathlessly over a hushed viola accompaniment, and this uneasy opening is considered one of the most widely known melodies in all of classical music.
• In the development section, a short motif passes through several voices and collides with itself, a passage where one can savor its contrapuntal tension.
• The slow second movement carries harmonies that slip by half steps beneath its surface calm, leading some to say it cannot simply be heard as bright.
• It is also often noted that later composers, including Mahler, loved to conduct this symphony, reinterpreting it as an archetype of romantic anguish.

A German-language opera created with his fellow Freemason Schikaneder, it staged the ideals of brotherhood and enlightenment in the year before his death.

• The Queen of the Night's aria "Hell's vengeance boils in my heart" requires the soprano to race up and down an extremely high range at speed, making it one of the most fiendishly difficult arias in operatic history.
• Papageno's entrance aria sets a simple, folk-like melody over an orchestral accompaniment that imitates the sound of panpipes, painting the character's common-man nature directly.
• The three chords repeated in the overture and the temple scenes are widely interpreted as a symbol drawn from Masonic ritual.
• The Act 2 scene in which Tamino passes through his trials depicts the progress of the ordeal through shifts in wind and percussion color symbolizing fire and water.

Commissioned by an anonymous patron, the work was left unfinished at his death, and it is said that, on his sickbed, he came to regard it as a requiem for himself.

• The introit "Requiem aeternam" opens with low, sunken strings and bassoons pressing down heavily, foreshadowing the dark coloring of the whole work.
• "Lacrimosa" is the passage where he wrote only eight bars before he died, and where exactly the boundary lies with the remainder completed by his student Süssmayr remains a matter of debate among scholars.
• "Dies irae" is a passage where the chorus pours forth in a driving rush, painting in musical figures the terror of the Last Judgment's arrival.
• The trombone solo in "Tuba mirum" symbolizes the trumpet announcing judgment, and its low, thick tone has been said to evoke death drawing slowly nearer.