Divertimento in F major, K.138

The piece unfolds in three short movements, each lasting only a few minutes, so the whole work is over before it can wear out its welcome.

I. Allegro: The music opens with a confident, upward-reaching theme played by the full string section, all bright energy and quick exchanges between the higher and lower instruments. Listen for how often the music seems to catch its breath and then dash off again.

II. Andante: The pace slows and the mood turns songful, with a melody that could almost be sung, passed gently among the strings over a soft, steady accompaniment. It feels like a quiet conversation after the bustle of the first movement.

III. Presto: The finale bursts back in with the fastest tempo of the piece, full of tumbling scale passages and playful repeated phrases that give it a dancing, almost breathless quality. The movement, and the whole divertimento, ends abruptly, as if Mozart simply ran out of jokes to tell.

Because it is written for strings alone, without winds or brass, the sound stays light and transparent throughout, letting individual lines stand out clearly.

Mozart wrote this divertimento in 1772, when he was sixteen, alongside two companion works, K.136 and K.137, during a stay in Salzburg. The three pieces are often called the "Salzburg symphonies," though Mozart himself labeled them divertimentos, a term for light, entertaining music without a fixed formal purpose. Scored for strings alone, they may have been intended as chamber music for a small ensemble or as short orchestral pieces for a local occasion, and no record survives of a specific premiere. The music remained little known outside specialist circles for a long time, but in the twentieth century conductors and chamber groups began performing all three works regularly, and K.138 in particular became a favorite opener for concerts because of its brevity, charm, and modest technical demands.