Ode to Divertimento (2025)

Program Note

Camerata Lusa commissioned Ode to Divertimento as a response to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1772 masterpiece, Divertimento in D, K. 136. Although Mozart was just 16 when he wrote his Divertimento, his composition schedule was packed, and it’s thought that the piece might have served as a way to for him refresh his spirits and creativity while working under the demanding pressure of writing his opera, Lucio Silla, in Salzburg in the winter of 1772 in time for carnaval. Joviality and play were the lighthouses that lit my path during the writing process of Ode to Divertimento, and led me to explore not just joy but also contemplation and the theatricality of drama - a three-dimensionality to music that Mozart had lots of fun with, not just in this piece but also in others in his catalog. Above all, Ode to Divertimento is just that - an ode to the transformative, foot-tappingly infectious power of fun through music.

Rose Roberts