Gran Partita

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Gran Partita is the popular name for the Serenade No. 10 in B flat major KV 361 composed in 1781 for two oboes , two clarinets , two basset horns , four French horns , two bassoons and double bass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . Today the double bass part is partly played on a double bassoon . The performance lasts about 50 minutes. The piece consists of seven movements:

  1. Largo - Molto Allegro
  2. Menuetto - Trio I – II
  3. adagio
  4. Menuetto. Allegretto - Trio I – II
  5. Romance. Adagio - Allegretto - Adagio
  6. Tema con variazioni
  7. Final. Molto Allegro

The British playwright Peter Shaffer lets Mozart's alleged adversary Antonio Salieri characterize the Adagio of the Serenade in his play Amadeus as well as in the film adaptation :

“The score didn't look like anything. The beginning, so simple, almost ridiculous. Just a pulsation, bassoons, basset horns - like a rusty squeeze table. But there, suddenly, high above, a lonely oboe, a single note, imperturbable above everything, until a clarinet picks it up, in a phrase of such heavenly sweetness! It wasn't a circus monkey composition! I had never heard music like this before. Full of deepest longing; a longing so insatiable that I trembled and it seemed to me as if I heard the voice of God. "

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