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HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Document Type

Rediscovered and Important Documents

Abstract

Some previously undocumented thematic similarities between symphonies by Joseph Haydn and Mozart’s “Linz” Symphony are described in the present article. In the first and second movements of the “Linz” Symphony, there are thematic similarities with Haydn’s Symphonies Nos. 62 and 43, respectively. A dotted figure in the first movement of K. 425 may have been influenced by the rhythmically similar beginning of Haydn’s Symphony No. 47, which may also have informed the opening bars of four of Mozart’s fortepiano concertos dating from 1784. That Mozart was acquainted with two of the Haydn symphonies mentioned above is attested by a piece of paper, now in the archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Simon Gratz autograph collection [250A]), on which the younger composer jotted down themes (with minor alterations) from Haydn’s symphonies Nos. 75, 47, and 62. Although this sheet of jottings by Mozart has been described previously, its significance for K.425 does not appear to have been recognized heretofore.

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