. But to carry such criticisms too far is ungracious and unjust. Mozart's themes, both the first and the second (beginning in measure 55), with their tripping contredance rhythms, fill our hearts with life and carry us irresistibly onward. And the Development has some surprises in store, for now the dramatic genius of Mozart asserts itself. Note the bold leaps and daring modulations of the opening measures. Nothing trite or formal here! The strong polyphonic treatment of the first theme, beginning in measure 120 and sustained with unflagging energy for seventy measures, makes this one of the most stimulating developments in symphonic literature, not excepting Beethoven himself. The Recapitulation, in subject matter, is an exact duplication of the Exposition and allows us to recover gradually from our excitement and to return to the ordinary world of men and events. The presentation of the second theme, however, shows Mozart's mastery of melodic variation. The substance is the same, but the import of the melody is intensified, e.g.
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The Overtures to Mozart's three operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and the Magic Flute are of particular interest, not only for the beauty of their contents but because they are our earliest examples of the Overture fashioned in complete Sonata form. Originally the Overture had been a prelude to the opening of a play, a prelude of the lightest and most meagre nature. Examples, beginning with Monteverde, abound in all the early Italian opera composers.[129] Lully of the French school and Alessandro Scarlatti of the Italian were the first to amplify these beginnings and to establish a definite standard of structure. In both schools this standard represented an application of the Three-part form principle; the French arranging their contrasts, slow, fast, slow (the so-called French overture—of which we have an example in Handel's Messiah) and the Italians, fast, slow, fast (the so-called Italian Overture). Although Gluck (1714-1787) did much to establish a more dramatic connection between the overture and the play, even the best of his Overtures, Iphigenia in Aulis, is a rather loosely expanded tripartite structure with a good many meaningless passages. But Mozart, coming after Haydn's definite establishment of the Sonata-form and with the growing interest of the public in instrumental music for its own sake as an incentive, could take advantage of these circumstances to display his genius and to delight his hearers with a piece of genuine music. This he did and his operatic overtures are of such distinct import and self-sufficiency that they are often detached from the opera itself and played as concert numbers. The Magic Flute Overture is also noteworthy because of the polyphonic treatment of the first theme which is a definite fugal presentation in four voices. The second theme, beginning in measure 64, and soon repeated, is light and winning, meant to supplement rather than to contrast strongly with the first theme, which indeed keeps up at the same time, in the inner voices, its rhythmic impetuosity. The Exposition ends with a graceful closing phrase, e.g.,
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