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But even if the
Divertimenti
were written as
Tafelmusik
, is that a reason for
ignoring their great musical value? Does not Mozart’s particular genius lie
in the fact that he was capable of making amasterpiece of a work expected
to be frivolous and superficial; that he was capable of transcending the
modesty of
Harmoniemusik
(music forwind ensemble);that hewas capable
of immortalising a genre as ephemeral as the divertimento?
It must be noted that Mozart himself did not regard
Tafelmusik
as a lowly
genre. Indeed, it plays an important part in one of his greatest works: in the
final scene of
Don Giovanni
(1787) a wind octet (plus cello) accompanies the
rake’s final feast, providing entertainment to take his mind off the imminent
arrival of Death. The
Divertimenti
Mozart composed in Salzburg could be
considered in the same perspective: not so much as ordinary, everyday
works, to be treated as backgroundmusic, but as deceptively carefree pieces,
celebrations of life, masks concealing anguish, melancholy and death. We
find the same Baroque aesthetic in the architecture of Salzburg, where even
the cemetery is a most charming place for a stroll!
It was not necessarily degrading to provide
Tafelmusik
, especially when one
considers the pleasures of the table as they were developed from the second
half of the eighteenth century onwards: as an ostentatious celebration of
power and wealth, of course, but also as a kind of work of art, a hedonistic
experience, in which aural and gustatory delights played an important
part, affirming life’s aesthetic pleasures. And both food and music are oral
pleasures: that of the musician as he produces sound from his instrument,
that of the diner savouring the various dishes put before him.
66 MOZART_ENSEMBLE PHILIDOR