Divertimento No. 15 in B♭ major, “Lodron No. 2” (“Lodronische Nachtmusik”), K. 287
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s Divertimento No. 15 in B♭ major (K. 287), composed in Salzburg in 1777 when he was 21, is the second of the so‑called “Lodron” night musics—festive, open‑air entertainment elevated by unusually refined chamber writing. Scored for two horns and strings, it couples aristocratic conviviality with a first‑violin part of near-concerto brilliance and a finale that winks at the theatrical.
Background and Context
In 1777 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was still bound to Salzburg, serving (often unwillingly) under Archbishop Colloredo while trying to secure better prospects beyond the court. In this environment, a substantial part of his instrumental output answered a very practical demand: music for the city’s aristocratic households—serenades, cassations, Notturni, and Divertimenti meant to accompany summer festivities, name-day celebrations, and domestic music-making.
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The Lodron family stood near the center of this cultivated social world. Countess Maria Antonia (Antonia) von Lodron was known as an active patron and keen amateur musician; Mozart supplied her circle with works tailored to their occasions and available players, including the celebrated Concerto for Three Keyboards in F, K. 242 (1776), and the two “Lodron” divertimenti (K. 247 and K. 287), both connected to her name day on 13 June.[1] In other words, K. 287 is not incidental “light music”: it is Mozart composing for a specific milieu where elegance, playability, and display had to be perfectly balanced.
Within Mozart’s Salzburg divertimento tradition, K. 287 is especially revealing because it sits at a stylistic crossroads. It belongs to a small group of sextets (K. 247, K. 287, K. 334) that treat the first violin with striking virtuosity—almost as if a violin concerto were being refracted through a serenade’s multi-movement plan.[2] The result is music that can charm outdoors and still reward close listening indoors.
Composition and Premiere
Mozart composed K. 287 in Salzburg in 1777, dedicating it to Countess Lodron.[3] The work is widely linked to her name-day festivities on 13 June 1777, and modern reference accounts regularly identify that day as the occasion for its first performance.[4] (Some catalogs give nearby mid-June dates for an initial run-through or performance; the larger point is that this is occasional music written for a particular annual celebration.)
Although later concert life sometimes treats K. 287 as “small-orchestra” repertoire, its scoring and Salzburg function point to one-player-per-part chamber forces—music for flexible use, capable of being played by skilled household musicians and a few hired professionals. That practical origin helps explain the divertimento’s deft alternation of public brilliance (horn calls, bold tuttis) and intimate detail (filigree violin writing, conversational inner voices).
Instrumentation
K. 287 is written for a compact serenade ensemble—strings with two horns—yet Mozart uses it with the coloristic imagination of a larger canvas.
- Brass: 2 horns (in B♭)
- Strings: 2 violins, viola, basso (cello and/or double bass)
This is the instrumentation transmitted in standard modern cataloging and editions.[3][4] The horns provide the outdoor “signal” quality associated with Salzburg Nachtmusik, while the strings—especially the first violin—carry much of the work’s virtuoso sparkle.
Form and Musical Character
Mozart lays out six movements, a plan that aligns K. 287 with the broader serenade/divertimento tradition: an opening sonata-allegro, a substantial slow or variation movement, paired minuets, and a finale designed to send the company home smiling.
- I. Allegro (B♭ major)
- II. *Tema con variazioni* (*Andante*) (F major) — theme and six variations
- III. *Menuetto* – Trio (B♭ major; Trio in G minor)
- IV. *Adagio* (E♭ major)
- V. *Menuetto* – Trio (B♭ major; Trio in E♭ major)
- VI. *Andante* – *Allegro molto* (B♭ major)
This movement scheme—and, notably, the key plan that travels from B♭ to its dominant (F) and subdominant (E♭)—is consistently reported in modern reference guides.[4][3]
I. Allegro
The first movement is divertimento music with a symphonic backbone: clear sonata-allegro rhetoric (exposition, development, recapitulation), animated by horn writing that feels both ceremonial and outdoorsy. Yet what makes K. 287 distinctive is the sheer agility of the first violin line. Instead of merely decorating the texture, it frequently assumes a leading, near-solo role—an approach singled out by the Mozarteum’s Köchel-Verzeichnis as characteristic of the “Lodron” sextet group.[2]
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II. Tema con variazioni (Andante)
The second movement is a set of variations in F major—music ideally suited to social listening because it sustains interest through changing surfaces rather than dramatic conflict. Each variation re-lights the same material from a new angle: rhythmic animation here, a shift of register there, a new strand of figuration in the first violin. In performance, the movement often functions as the divertimento’s center of gravity—less “background” than polite, sustained attention.
III. Menuetto – Trio
The first minuet confirms the work’s B♭ major home base, but Mozart deepens the expressive palette by placing the trio in G minor.[4] This momentary move into the minor mode—especially striking in a genre associated with geniality—creates the sense that the night music can turn inward without losing its poise.
IV. Adagio
In E♭ major, the Adagio offers a broader lyric expanse than one might expect from occasional music. The horn writing now colors rather than proclaims, and the strings sing with a quasi-operatic cantabile. K. 287 is a reminder that Mozart’s Salzburg “entertainment” works are often laboratories for the expressive language he would later deploy on Vienna’s larger stages.
V. Menuetto – Trio
The second minuet restores the social dance frame—more public again—while the trio’s shift to E♭ major keeps the tonal world gently mobile.[4] Mozart’s gift here is economy: small harmonic turns and textural recalibrations are enough to make a repeated minuet form feel freshly staged.
VI. Andante – Allegro molto
The finale is one reason K. 287 deserves far more frequent hearing. It begins with an Andante introduction that has been described as an instrumental recitative—an unmistakably theatrical gesture in an otherwise “outdoor” genre—before launching into Allegro molto brilliance.[4] The effect is as if the players briefly step into an operatic spotlight and then return to festive motion, sending the serenade tradition off with a grin.
Reception and Legacy
Unlike the later Eine kleine Nachtmusik (K. 525), the “Lodron” divertimenti have never become universal shorthand for Mozartian serenade style; their very specificity—written for a Salzburg household, for a particular celebration—may have kept them closer to connoisseurs than to the general public. Yet K. 287’s staying power is evident in its continuous edition history and modern circulation in both chamber and small-orchestra performance traditions.[3]
What secures its artistic value is the way Mozart ennobles the divertimento without betraying its function. The scoring is modest, but the musical thinking is not: a sonata-minded opening, a large-scale variation movement, minuets that flirt with deeper affect, and a finale that imports operatic rhetoric into night music. Heard in this light, K. 287 is not merely “pleasant Salzburg background”—it is a portrait of a 21-year-old Mozart practicing how to make society music speak with genuine character.
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[1] MozartDocuments.org — contextual note on Countess Antonia von Lodron, her musical patronage, and Mozart’s Lodron-related works (including K. 287 for her name day).
[2] Köchel-Verzeichnis (Mozarteum) — notes on Mozart’s divertimenti/notturni practice and the grouping of K. 247, K. 287, and K. 334 as sextets with a highly virtuosic first violin.
[3] IMSLP — catalog entry for Divertimento in B♭ major, K. 287/271H (year, dedication, instrumentation, movement list).
[4] Wikipedia — overview of Divertimento No. 15, K. 287 (occasion/name day, scoring, movement structure and keys).