Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K. 504, “Prague”

• Mozart composed this symphony in Vienna. He completed it on December 6, 1786,¹ and the work premiered in Prague (hence the nickname) on January 19, 1787.²
• Mozart composed this symphony specifically for his early 1787 trip to Prague.³  His opera The Marriage of Figaro had recently been presented in that city, and its popularity was such that Prague was in the midst of a Mozart craze. Mozart received an invitation to visit Prague in 1787 from (according to an early biographer), “the orchestra and a company of distinguished connoisseurs and music lovers.”⁴

“Figaro’s tunes echoed through the streets and the parks; even the harpist on the alehouse bench had to play ‘Non più andrai’ if he wanted to attract any attention at all.”

Franz Niemetschek, Mozart’s early biographer (who was from Prague), on the 1786-7 Figaro craze in Prague⁵

• One highlight of this visit to Prague was a ball featuring dance tunes arranged from Figaro. Mozart wrote all about it in a letter to an (unfortunately unnamed) friend: 

“At six o’clock I drove with Count Canal to the so-called ‘Breitfeldischen Ball’ where the pick of the beauties of Prague are in the habit of congregating. That would have been something for you, my friend! I fancy seeing you–not walking, but limping,–after all the pretty girls and women! I did not dance, neither did I spoon;–the first because I was too tired, the second because of my congenital bashfulness. But I saw with great pleasure how all these people hopped about delightedly to the music of my ‘Figaro’ turned into contredanses and Allemands. Here nothing is talked about except ‘Figaro;’ nothing played, piped, sung or whistled except ‘Figaro;’ no opera is attended except ‘Figaro.’ Certainly a great honor for me.”

Mozart, writing from Prague to an unknown friend, January 15, 1787⁶

• The “Prague” Symphony premiered at Prague’s National Theater. At the same concert, Mozart performed improvisations at the piano, including one on ‘Non più andrai’ from Figaro.⁷

“We did not, in fact, know what to admire most, whether the extraordinary compositions or his extraordinary playing; together they made such an overwhelming impression on us that we felt we had been bewitched. When Mozart had finished the concert he continued improvising alone on the piano for half an hour.”

Niemetschek, on the concert in which the “Prague” Symphony premiered⁸

“[I] counted this day as one of the happiest of his life.”

Mozart, after the concert premiere of the “Prague” Symphony⁹

• The “Prague” is considered the first of Mozart’s “late” symphonies (nos. 38-41), all of which are harmonically complex for their time and more technically challenging than the average Mozart symphony.¹⁰

1. Cliff Eisen and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 12, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278233. 
2. “Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K. 504 (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus),” IMSLP, accessed August 12, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.38_in_D_major%2C_K.504_(Mozart%2C_Wolfgang_Amadeus). 
3. Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 305.
4. Ibid., 419.
5. Quoted in Ibid.
6. Friedrich Kerst and Henry Krehbiel, eds., Mozart: The Man and the Artist Revealed in His Own Words (Mineola: Dover: 2016), 23-24.
7. Solomon, Mozart: A Life, 419.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Eisen and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online.