Symphony No. 41 (Mozart) Reportedly, from the very first chords, Mozart's Symphony No. 41, in C Major reminded Cramer of Jupiter and his thunderbolts. The celebrated finale of the symphony is a re-working, albeit a majestic one, of the opening movement of Carl Ditters's symphony in D, "Der Sturz Phaëtons" (The Fall of Phaëton) of 1785. In those days of classical education, members of the Philharmonic Society, of which Salomon was a founding member, will have known that the planet that the ancient Greeks called "Phaët(h)on" is the same planet that the ancient Romans called "Jupiter." Thus the majestic nickname is also a humorous
Symphony No. 2 (Borodin) himself, and is considered to be one of his greatest. It has many melodic resemblances to both "Prince Igor" and "Mlada", which were two theatrical works that diverted Borodin's attention away from the B minor symphony between 1869–75. According to the account of Borodin's friend Nikolay Kashkin, the symphony's striking and abrupt opening theme originated from the abandoned chorus of Polovtsians, and the Soviet biographer Serge Dianin notes that there is a common thread present in all three pieces. According to Dianin, "it is for this reason that we find certain similarities in the themes Borodin uses in these works."