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
Frank-Michael Guthmann of the Trio Echnaton
Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud
Frank Peter Zimmermann of Trio Zimmermann
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.
A Critical Analysis
The Trio Echnaton’s cellist, Frank-Michael Guthmann—whose 2004 recording with the Trio Echnaton may be the most provocative ever, with illuminating extremes of dynamics and phrasing—lays out the musical terrain. “The first movement is like a concerto—every instrument has its difficult parts,” he says. “In concert, we normally take a small break after the first movement, 12–15 minutes, depending on whether we’ve taken the repeats. The second part consists of the slow movement, like a sunrise, and the first menuetto, which creates the funny atmosphere of a hall where people are dancing minuets. The third part consists of the variations movement, the second menuetto and the Finale.”
Indeed, the trio presents unique sets of challenges for each player.
Further Resources
Read more about Mozart and his music.
The acclaimed Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud comments, “Compared to his quartets, there is not as much melody with accompaniment because each instrument has its own role, which leads to a very interesting texture, less about ensemble, more about instrumental colors, in the way a divertimento was meant to be. Technically, it is more demanding than most of Mozart, comparable to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.”
Violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, whose Trio Zimmermann recording of the trio for Bis Records is one of the latest to hit the market, concurs. “The violin parts are virtuosic all the time,” he says. “Its intonation is the most exposed because of the highest register.”
Among the difficulties for the violist, Zimmermann adds, “are dealing with the multiple middle voices.”
As for the cello part, Vogler says, it’s relatively easy for long stretches. “The cello part is very easy, basically just a bass part,” he says. “But here and there it kind of freaks out into exuberantly virtuoso passages, in the first movement and in the variations movement. And the opening of the slow movement is one of Mozart’s most glorious challenges for the cello. You have to be on top of it, and make it sound extremely easy.”
In his authoritative work, Mozart: His Character, His Work (Oxford University Press), Alfred Einstein regards K. 563—composed between the “Hoffmeister” Quartet and the first of the “Prussian” Quartets—as a wholly unique development in the composer’s oeuvre.
According to Einstein, Mozart wrote the piece as a grand tribute to his fellow Mason, Michael Puchberg, “who had helped him out of embarrassment so often, as well as for posterity or eternity.”
Unlike Beethoven’s Serenade for flute, violin, and viola, which Einstein regarded as a piece suitable for “an open-air performance,” K. 563 is “a true chamber-music work” that “grew to such large proportions only because it was intended to offer the hearer something special in the way of art, invention, and good spirits.”
Evidence for this can be found in the three principal movements: the first Allegro, the Adagio in A flat, and the final Rondo “are of full chamber-music stature. Mozart wrote few development sections of such grim seriousness as that of the first movement,” he wrote, “few adagios of such breadth, few finales of such loveableness and intimacy. . . .”
It is, he concluded, “the finest, most perfect trio ever heard.”
Players Recall Their First Encounter
There is no question that, from its opening bars, K. 563 demands to be heard. Violinist Cecilia Zilliacus of the Trio Zilliacus/Persson/Raitinen heard the piece for the first time at a reading with her trio mates. Now ZPR has forged such a bond with the music that they played it in concert last year together with an actor who read from Mozart’s letters to Michael Puchberg, written in the year the music was composed. “The contrast was overwhelming,” she says. “This music, so filled with happiness, joy, and jokes, contrasted with the letters, which are filled with Mozart’s problems. He asked for money in every letter, and it was painful to hear his excuses, apologies, and firm belief that everything would get better and that he soon would repay his debts.”
Another cellist, Karel Steylaerts of the Trio F?nix, heard K. 563 for the first time when his trio “played some excerpts of this work at a concert with some friends dressed in period costumes. I was immediately impressed by its beauty and ingenuity.”
And its difficulty.
“You can work and study on it as much as you want,” he says. “The first time you really play this piece, it feels as if you’re playing totally nude.”
He adds this tip: “Spend a lot of time practicing slowly and with metronome, then build up the tempo very slowly until you reach the ‘right’ tempo. Then try to let everything loose, and enjoy.”
Cellist Christian Poltéra, of the Zimmermann Trio, first heard the piece as a student at the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove in London and was immediately awestruck. “I sat in the performance expecting a short, light divertimento,” he recalls. “I was then blown away by this piece in every way.”
That response is typical. Violist Johanna Persson said “it was love at first hearing. The viola part is really great to play,
filled with both musical and technical adventures. “
Violinist Ani Kavafian-Mindich remembers that her father whistled the tune of the “most amiable final movement every day as an announcement of his return home.”
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