On 12 January 1776 at the Munich Court Opera, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera La finta giardiniera (The Feigned Gardener Girl) had its very successful premiere. Not yet 20 years old, the composer attempted to use his success to obtain a position in the Bavarian court in order to escape the services of Archbishop Colloredo in Salzburg. The elector, however, told Mozart that he did not have a position for him at the moment, undoubtedly after having consulted Colloredo, who was also present at the premiere in Munich, so the composer had no choice but to return home to Salzburg. Mozart’s disappointment does not appear to have been too great because at home he was churning out joyous, internally balanced music. He wanted to do musical experiments, to break away from established customs, and to try out non-traditional solutions. Serenades, divertimentos, cassations, and nocturnes offered him a broad range of possibilities, and he had no lack of commissions for such works. Mozart never underestimated this kind of music for entertainment, which we would now call popular music. It was he who brought this genre of music to its zenith, together with his contemporaries Johann Wendt, Franz Krommer, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Mozart’s serenades constituted a completely equal counterpart to his symphonies; in them, the composer arrived at his mature style sooner than in his operas and symphonies. This is especially true of the three wind serenades from the years 1780–1782: the Tenth Serenade in B flat major, K 361 (Gran Partita), the Eleventh Serenade in E flat major, K 375, and the Twelfth Serenade in C minor, K 388 (Nacht Musique). The latter should not be confused with Mozart’s Thirteenth Serenade, A Little Night Music, K 525, which is yet another gem.
Mozart’s Seventh Serenade, the lengthy orchestral Haffner Serenade in D major, K 250, was composed on commission for the important townsman and Salzburg dignitary Sigmund Haffner. Mozart finished composing the work at the last moment, as was his custom, on 20 July 1776, just in time for it to be heard at the wedding of Haffner’s daughter Elisabeth. Haffner, who commissioned the work, was an important figure and a successful merchant who financed the construction and operation of Salzburg’s hospitals, educational institutions, and monasteries. To this day, there is a Sigmund Haffner-Strasse in the middle of Salzburg. Mozart was also well acquainted with his son Sigmund Haffner, jnr., who was apparently far from saintly. In a letter to his son, Leopold Mozart wrote: “his father gave him his freedom and independence too early, and logically that led to licentiousness”; he was notorious for his “distasteful affair with his stableboy” and also for “living with a black woman”, for which papa Haffner ultimately disinherited him. Nonetheless, in 1782 the younger Haffner, the same age as Mozart, succeeded at getting himself elevated to the nobility, and for the occasion, he dedicated to him the Haffner Symphony, K 385. This was supposedly also at the request of Leopold, who seems not to have been bothered by the earlier scandals under the changed circumstances.
Into his eight-movement Haffner Serenade, Mozart incorporated a “concerto intercalare” (inserted concerto). The second, third, and fourth movements actually constitute a three-movement concerto with a solo violin part (Andante – Menuetto – Rondeau). Mozart mastered violin playing perfectly although he preferred to play the viola later in Vienna. In Salzburg, he often played the violin for musical productions in the salons of the nobility and burghers. Incidentally, Mozart’s wonderful violin concertos in G major and A major also date from this same period.
The power of the music of the Haffner Serenade comes not only from the composer’s extraordinary inventiveness and diverse yet distinctive means of expression, but also, above all, from the masterful conception of the work as a whole. It is full of wonderful moments and striking details such as the premonition of the march theme in the introduction to the first movement, which is then developed in the sonata-form Molto allegro. Or there is the anticipation of the rondo theme in the Adagio, which undergoes a gradual transformation of metre and tempo until it reaches the rondo’s Allegro assai. Finally, there are the three menuets of entirely differing expressive character, especially in the case of the second one in the “dark” key of G minor. The Haffner Serenade is the work of a mature composer, and in its day it represented an entirely new standard of quality in its genre.
