According to Mozart’s own thematic catalogue of his works (the Verzeichnüß), which he kept from 1784 to 1791, his final three symphonies were composed within the space of a few weeks, from late June to early August 1788. During that year the 11-year-old Hummel was a resident pupil of Mozart and would have been a daily witness to the creation of these seminal works of the Western musical canon.

There is an almost total lack of documentary evidence concerning the circumstances in which these sy...