Divertimento

Eighteenth-century social music, light in texture, many movements, written to entertain

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A divertimento is eighteenth-century social music, many movements and light in texture, played on the spot at dinners, weddings and outdoor gatherings.

Origins and era

In the middle of the eighteenth century Austrian and Bohemian courts commissioned divertimentos in quantity for suppers, celebrations and garden parties. Mozart wrote them from boyhood to his last years, from string trios to wind sextets. Haydn's early keyboard works also used the name. After 1800 the genre was absorbed into the serenade and the suite, and the title survived only in occasional pieces.

What you hear

Scoring runs from three to ten players, strings and winds mixed, the bass never heavy. Four to six movements usually place a minuet at the centre, framed by a march, a slow movement and a rondo. The tune sits in the top part while the others hold it up with plain chords and fixed rhythmic figures, so the texture is markedly thinner than a symphony's. Notice whether the winds answer only in whole phrases, and whether the minuet's trio changes instruments. Such works often stay in one key throughout and are organised by movement character rather than key relations. In wind versions the horns hold whole phrases while the strings do the running, and the two habits stacked together produce the typical outdoor sound of the eighteenth century. Such music was played in gardens and dining rooms by few players with little rehearsal, so the writing had to be readable at sight and fit together on the spot.

Key figures

Mozart's Musical Joke K.522 turned the social genre into satire, Haydn's early keyboard divertimentos left a large sample, and Kammel and the court musicians of Bohemia wrote short sets for amateur ensembles.

Lineage

It grows out of Baroque outdoor entertainment and the suite and leads to the serenade, the lighter movements of the string quartet and nineteenth-century salon ensembles.

Common misunderstandings

A divertimento is not necessarily unserious, since Mozart wrote intricate counterpoint and satire under the title. Nor is it always wind music, because strings, winds, mixed groups and even solo keyboard all appear.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Divertimento, 用于核对编制与场合
• Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music, Vol. 2, 用于核对十八世纪社交音乐的语境

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.