Mozart - Symphony 41 [Menuhin-Sinfonia Varsovia] Mozart's last Symphony is my favourite, you can hear him breaking away from the mooring of Haydn, in search of something greater, that Beethoven would eventually turn up and find, one of the first few works that i initially heard when i first got into Classical music, i feel that Mozart got better and better as he got older, his last / final works are his best.
Yehudi Menuhin is an American Violinist, born in 1916, and died in 1999, in the later years of his musical career he became a Conductor, and he recorded this work in 1989 in Poland, the front cover picture [by Richard Glover] shows what looks like a round drain cover in the road, whatever, i think it makes a great ambiguous cover, nicely symmetrical.
In the fourth movement there's a great sense of explosiveness in fortes, it's an incessant movement, Mozart uses and re-uses the same themes and devices over and over again, it's like waves and waves constantly pummelling your ears, and Mozart employs the excellent use of fast / slow, loud / quiet to create tension and release, it really packs a punch, Menuhin's recording isn't perfect, too much 'treble scream' in fortes, it needs some more bass to it, but it's still thrilling, and Menuhin knows how to keep it going at a great pace.
Here's Jeffrey Tate conducting the fourth movement on YouTube.
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