In a letter dated July 27, 1782, Mozart tells his father Leopold that he has been working in a hurry on the composition of a new serenade. But the serenade was not so new. What Wolfgang was doing was a revision of an earlier serenade for six wind instruments, which now had to be written for eight. Having settled in Vienna only a year earlier as a free pianist and composer, Mozart had heard about the brand-new wind orchestra that Emperor Joseph II had just added to his court. Unusually, the ruler had put together an ensemble with eight instrumentalists instead of six. Adapting the music to the emperor's tastes is what Mozart was urgently in need of.
The original serenade is a piece composed on the occasion of the feast of St. Therese, for the sister-in-law of Monsieur von Hickl, the court painter, in whose house it was first performed on October 15, 1781. In a letter to his father dated November 3, Mozart points out the main motive for its composition: the interest in winning the favor of Mr. von Strack, musical advisor to the Emperor, and assiduous visitor to Hickl's house. To our delight, Mozart, in his salty style, gives us some glimpses of Viennese musical life at the time:
"The six gentlemen who executed it are poor beggars who, however, play quite well together, particularly the first clarinet and the two horns. But the chief reason why I composed it was to let Herr von Strack, who goes there every day, hear something of my composition; so I wrote it rather carefully. It has won great applause too and on St. Theresa's Night it was performed in three different places; for as soon as they finished playing it in one place, they were taken off somewhere else and paid to play it."
We assume that Herr von Strack did hear the serenade. Unfortunately for Mozart, the Emperor's advisor never cared to get closer to the Salzburg genius.
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