Divertimento in B-flat major, K137 composed 1772 E A R LY I N 17 7 2 ,
by
Wolfgang Amadè
MOZART born January 27, 1756 Salzburg died December 5, 1791 Vienna
Severance Hall 2012-13
the sixteen-year-old Mozart composed three short works for strings, which survive together in a single manuscript and were cataloged in the 19th century as K136 through K138. At the head of each piece, someone else later wrote the title “Divertimento,” as good a title as any for such a clever, appealing musical selection. Somewhere in the chronological numbering of Mozart’s works compiled by Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, the music ceases to be a child’s work and becomes a man’s — and for many, the milestone is to be found at No. 136, the first of these three Divertimentos. We could probably live, albeit regretfully, without the first 135 works, but the 136th and its two companion pieces are small masterpieces, perfect in craftsmanship and full of that intensely musical vitality that was beginning to mark off Mozart as more than a child prodigy. He had just returned from a long visit to Italy, where he had composed a good deal and been abundantly admired. The prospect of a successful career was still undimmed, although the recent appointment of the unsympathetic Hieronymus von Colloredo as archbishop of Salzburg was to cast a long shadow over the next nine years. These three short works reveal little of Mozart’s real teenage heart, but they do tell us how perfectly he understood string instruments. In performance, we should picture father Leopold leading a group of string players from the first violin desk at the Salzburg court, while everyone talked noisily through the music, undiverted by the Divertimento. The second of the three works, K137, begins, unusually, with the slow movement, and begins moreover with phrases that sound more like the middle than the start of a movement. All three movements are patterned in the same way, each a compact sonata form, with both halves of each movement repeated. The tune that closes each half of the final movement has a folksy charm that reminds us that even at court the peasants’ music has a place. Much ink has been spilled in debating the issue of whether these works are for string orchestra or for string quartet. The original manuscript does not make it clear and they were not published until some years after the composer’s death. The ambiguity lies in the word “Basso” (rather than “Bassi”) for About the Music
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