 The three symphonies that Mozart composed over two months in the summer of 1788 inspired Roberto González-Monjas to plan three concert seasons around this trio of pieces, which are incomparably skilfully crafted works that reflect the richness of the human condition. González-Monjas and his team at the Musikkollegium Winterthur thought long and hard about how to conceptualise the dimensions inherent in Mozart’s symphonic triad. Ultimately, the conductor opted for “Becoming – Being – Transcending,” which immediately makes sense. With its grand introduction, the first of the three works, the E flat major Symphony (No. 39, Claves CD 3076), is replete with a sense of fresh incipience. By contrast, the G minor Symphony (No. 40, Claves CD 3099) throws us into the midst of the emotional turmoil of human existence – without warning. Finally, everything in Mozart’s last symphony, the ‘Jupiter’ in C major (No. 41), is directed towards the breathtaking coda of the finale. The Musikkollegium Winterthur’s concert season 24/25 was thus characterised by “transcendence.” Farewell and mourning, loss and pain have always been themes that are well suited to music as an art form. As in Mozart’s Requiem, music can offer consolation. It can be a meditative way of dealing with eternity, as in the Farewell from Mahler’s Song of the Earth. It can also express our fear of the end, as in Frank Martin’s Everyman Monologues, or give expression to pain, as in Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony, whose final movement could perhaps almost be construed as a plea for inconsolability. Incidentally, it was logical that Roberto González-Monjas and the Musikkollegium Winterthur should include all these works in the programme of the 24/25 season. As an art of its time that is inextricably linked to transience, all music itself is always ‘transcendent’. In Friedrich Schiller’s elegy, Nänie – the setting by Johannes Brahms was also performed in the 24/25 season – the poet took the transience of all art to its ruthless conclu¬sion: “Even beauty must die.” The fact that “the beautiful fades, that the perfect dies” ultimately means that one day – no later than with the demise of humanity – even Mozart’s wonderful symphonies will disappear. Schiller does, however, offer art some consolation: that of being a marvellous “lament” – while the ordinary merely “descends soundlessly to the underworld.” [..] - Felix Michel
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