Symphony No. 41 was Mozart’s final symphony and perhaps the most monumental score he wrote for orchestra. The title by which it is known does it justice. It borrows the name of the largest planet in the solar system, or of the Roman god, father of Venus and Minerva.
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The Jupiter Symphony is an imposing work. For this reason, the title it carries suits it well. There are various theories about the origin of the name. Mozart’s youngest son, Franz Xaver Mozart, stated that it was due to Johann Peter Salomon, the same German impresario who, based in London, also commissioned Joseph Haydn’s famous London Symphonies in the first half of the 1790s. Other theories argue that the name arose as a marketing strategy for the symphony’s presentation in Edinburgh in 1819, or from the publication of a piano reduction dating from 1823, authored by Muzio Clementi. What is certain is that it is a ceremonious work, majestic in character, for which the reference to a Roman god—often equated with the Greek Zeus and who had also “lent” his name to a planet—fits particularly well.
Rui Campos Leitão