3 is the Charm: Mozart’s Divertimento in Eb for string trio, K. 563
Mozart’s Divertimento in Eb for string trio, K. 563—the “K” stands for kingly
At first glance, Mozart’s Divertimento in Eb for string trio—it is the only string trio Mozart ever wrote—is merely six movements and 45 minutes of the composer at his most Olympian. On closer hearing, however, “K. 563,” as it is known to string players and cognoscenti, is Mozart at the summit of his art.
It’s “the crown of Mozart’s chamber music,” the cellist Jan Vogler says.
The trio’s succession of beautiful melodies and virtuosic turns for the three solo instruments, all equals, recalls Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 39–41, which, at that time, he had recently composed. After run-throughs in Vienna, the trio premiered April 13, 1789, at a private concert held at the Hotel de Pologne in Dresden. Mozart took the viola part, teaming up with violinist Anton Teyber and cellist Nikolaus Kraft, son of Anton Kraft, for whom Mozart may have intended the part.
“It was played quite decently,” an apparently unenthused Mozart wrote in a letter the following week.
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