Notes for: August 2, 2005
Mozart’s biographers have advanced many explanations for his chronic financial difficulties. Among other factors, they have cited his and his wife’s personal extravagance and mismanagement of family finances, his incompetence in business affairs, his inability to cater to Vienna’s musical tastes, his generosity to friends in even greater need, his reputed addiction to gambling at billiards, and, as in the play and movie Amadeus, the enmity of an influential rival, Antonio Salieri.
Whatever the cause, Mozart’s frustrations were never greater than in the year 1788. Three of his operas – The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Impressario and The Marriage of Figaro – were being performed all over Germany to great applause, but with little profit for the composer. Don Giovanni received its initial performance in Vienna where it mattered most, but it was a failure with the audience. Mozart completed his great final three symphonies but could not arrange their performance. After several years of waiting, he was appointed “Chamber Composer to the Emperor,” but the stipend was cut to less than half the amount paid to his predecessor. In sum, Mozart found himself at the peak of his career – and hopelessly in debt.
In desperation, Mozart turned for assistance to a fellow Freemason, Michael Puchberg, a wealthy textile manufacturer and a talented amateur violinist. During the final three and one-half years of his life, Mozart again and again received financial help from Puchberg, and at his death he owed Puchberg more than a year’s salary. Puchberg made no claim to this money and, in fact, continued to advance funds to Mozart’s widow.
In June, 1788, Mozart sent Puchberg no less than three frantic appeals for funds to pay off his creditors. In his third letter, moreover, he suggested that he was suffering an attack of depression (“black thoughts”) as the result of his economic problems. Puchberg responded with 300 guilders – equal to three/eighths of Mozart’s annual stipend. Mozart reciprocated by composing for his benefactor two of his finest chamber works – the Piano Trio in E Major, K. 542, and the Divertimento in E Flat, K. 563.
The divertimento is a serene and happy work, reflecting none of Mozart’s anxieties. But it is an enigma on two counts. First, why a divertimento? This was an old-fashioned, six-movement format that Mozart had used in earlier years to fulfill commissions for light musical entertainment. He had not written a divertimento for 11 years, and the use of that designation and format in this instance grossly misrepresented the work’s stature as serious chamber music. One can only assume that Mozart initially intended the work for Puchberg’s social use, but was carried away by his own inspiration.
Second, why a string trio – that is, a work for violin, viola and cello? Mozart had already achieved mastery of the string quartet, string quintet and piano trio (piano, violin and cello), but aside from a few arrangements of Bach preludes and fugues, he had never before written music for string trio. Nor was he to return to the string trio after this divertimento.
In general, moreover, the string trio has always been relatively unattractive to composers. Haydn, Mozart’s model and mentor, wrote more than 70 string quartets and more than 30 piano trios, but no string trios after his 33rd birthday.. Beethoven wrote five string trios early in his career, but then dropped the form. Similarly, Schubert wrote two string trios by the age of 20, but no more thereafter. Neither Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorák nor Debussy wrote any string trios at all. For the technically minded, the string trio has an inherent limitation. During the 17th century, the triad – the familiar do-mi–so chord – became the harmonic basis for western music. Variety and expression were introduced by adding one or more notes to the triad. This pattern necessitated at least four “voices” – three for the triad and one for the additional element.
In the realm of chamber music, the string quartet, with four sharply defined voices, was clearly the most accommodating medium. The piano trio was also adaptable since the pianist could cover two voices, one with each hand. However, the three-voiced string trio was at an obvious disadvantage – the fourth voice could be supplied only if an instrument played a double stop or moved quickly from one note to another.
Why, then, did Mozart willingly make life so difficult for himself? Perhaps he considered these technical problems a challenge to his skill, and, true enough, the divertimento demonstrates a variety of textures and tone colors remarkable for three stringed instruments. Arguably, the divertimento is the most inventive work in the limited string-trio literature.
The ingenuity of texture is heard at the outset of the first movement when the main theme is introduced sotto voce (in half-voice). The coloring of the lilting second theme is even more striking, with the cello paralleling the violin a 10th below and the viola taking the bass line. The development then puts the main theme through a series of dynamic contrasts.
The second movement adagio is also in sonata form but with a significant departure. An upward cello figure heard in the first measure is embellished to become the second theme. The embellished figure then punctuates the development, and eventually dominates the movement’s closing 14 measures.
After the first of two minuets, the fourth movement is a theme with four daring variations. At first the theme seems a simple-minded nursery tune, but Mozart increases its complexity as he goes along and in each variation subjects it to a different structural device. In the first variation, the tune is ornamented by each instrument. The second variation includes two passages in canon, with one instrument imitating another. The third variation, in minor, is in triple counterpoint. In the fourth variation, the viola intones the theme like an anthem against further violin and cello ornamentation.
The second minuet has two trios. The work closes with a rondo in which the main theme is a rollicking 6/8 tune whose pace is set by repeated viola triplets. The flow is interrupted by a drum-like phrase, which crops up again and again throughout the movement and winds up the divertimento with a joyful tattoo.