Bob Draper wrote about excessive sweetness:

>The opening movement of symphony 40 is one such sweet example.

That's an interesting choice.  What makes it too sweet - is it the
chromaticism, the 'sighing' motifs? In my view there are plenty of
clear-cut and vigorous passages to offset that.  If any part of the
symphony were too sweet, I would have thought it to be the second movement
- but again, that's only a foil against the darker and more urgent fast
movements.  That's the thing about Mozart generally - you can't look at the
parts in isolation, all the elements tend to balance out and counterweigh
each other.  That gives his works their tension and prevents them from ever
being self-indulgent.

I don't hear much sweetness in the first movement at all - it sounds rather
urgent and nervous to me.  What recordings have you listened to? I can
imagine that if you play the first movement too slowly and soup up the
lyrical parts it may start to sound mooning and sentimental.

Felix Delbruck
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