What a way to open the season! – Mozart’s last three symphonies, his crowning achievements in the realm of orchestral writing. Each is a masterpiece of the highest order, yet all were composed in the incredibly brief period of less than two months. No two are remotely alike. In No. 39, we find “the most limpid and lyrical music in existence” (Eric Blom). No. 40 is filled with stress, anxiety, dark passions and urgent pathos – a harbinger of the romantic era looming on the horizon in the next century. The subtitle of Mozart’s last symphony, Jupiter, seems absolutely appropriate for music that evokes images of Olympian pomp, nobility, grandeur and perfect mastery of construction – the final thunderbolt from the chief of the musical gods.