THE WIND-INSTRUMENTS IN MOZART'S SYMPHONIES

Abstract

instruments used in the symphonies of Haydn and Mozart except the clarinet. The tendency of the earlier masters was to employ the winds in their orchestral works as added voices in the polyphony. Thus little cognizance was taken of the peculiar nature of each of the instruments; they were all allotted the same sort of material that was played by the strings, so far as their physical construction allowed them to play it. But with the dying out of the polyphonic style of music about the middle of the eighteenth century and the rapid growth of homophonic music, and with the concomitant rise in popularity of the symphony, a new method of handling the winds was carried over from French and Italian opera into the symphony. Instead of being treated as so many extra string-like voices, they were given work much more suited to their nature, namely, the task of accompanying the more agile strings by sustained chords, at the same time supplying harmonic background to the orchestral ensemble. Among the older duties of the winds which were retained was that of doubling the strings in tutti passages. Most of the historians of the symphony orchestra agree in conceding to Mozart and Haydn a preeiminent role in bridging the gap between the predominantly string orchestra of the early symphonists and the fuller, richer, orchestration of Beethoven and the Romantic composers. It is true, of course, that these men did not do the job single-handed. As the range and flexibility of the windinstruments improved, owing to certain changes in their construction during the second half of the century, composers throughout Europe began to write freer and more elaborate parts for them. But Mozart and Haydn went farther in this direction than any of the others, and the influence of these, the greatest symphonists of their generation, was felt by the great composers of the next, the generation of Beethoven and Schubert. Of the two, Mozart was the more progressive. Younger, more impressionable, more sensitive to contemporary music, and possessed of a wider knowledge of it because of his travels, it was