Classical Music - Mozart’s Gran Partita

Serenades were written in the eighteenth century ‘Classical Period’ as immediate-consumption background music for parties and weddings, and thus many of them do not survive. But most of the ones Mozart wrote do survive, and the Serenade in B Flat For Winds, otherwise known as the ‘Gran Partita’, is one of his most popular pieces. The piece will be performed for free in the Westgate Chapel on Sunday afternoon.

It is often said that the serenade was performed for the first time at Mozart’s wedding to Constanze Weber, in 1782, as a surprise present to the composer from the aristocrat who was funding the party, the Baroness Von Waldst‰dten, who was well-known for throwing lavish dos. But this is hotly disputed by a number of Mozart students, who claim that the story was invented by an early biographer of the composer to spice up his prose. Perhaps the story has survived (you can find great theses disproving it on the internet) because the Serenade is one of the most joyful, charming, playful and light-hearted pieces in the whole of the composer’s canon, and it’s lovely to think of it being played to cap off his wedding. Written for 13 wind instruments, it was in its time an experimental piece, exploring the possibilities of instrumental combinations outside the conventional norms. The wedding party, incidentally, was a great success, as was the marriage: Constanze’s portrayal in the movie ‘Amadeus’ was highly unsympathetic, but it seems she was a loyal, witty and intelligent partner for the composer, and bore him nine children.