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. 7 (Shostakovich) and religious sentiments, the authorities were no longer suppressing Orthodox themes or images. Yet for all the importance he placed on them, Shostakovich may have been right in writing the symphony without a text, in view of the censorship that would eventually be reimposed. Something else Shostakovich played for his composition students were the 12 variations of what later became known as the "invasion" theme. This has been taken historically, especially in the West, as portraying the invading "Wehrmacht", and was listed as such in the official program. For many years this was considered irrefutable. New information now casts some