Mozart, Divertimento, K186

The divertimento for ten wind instruments, K 186/159b, was composed in Milan in 1773. It is unusual for its two clarinets (Mozart had previously employed them in K113 and also includes them in the companion to K186, K166) and for its English horns. Below are incipits for each of the five movements. The first is a small-scale binary form -- the Italianate sonata-overture in miniature. The menuet and central andante aria are typical of serenades and divertimenti, but the fourth movement is a slow pastorale, not a second menuet. The finale is again typical: a 2/4 contredanse that shows its kinship with the gavotte in its square phrasing that always starts midway through the bar. The movements of interest for their ascending cadence gestures are the first and the last.

In the opening 12-bar theme -- a sentence nominally but hardly conforming to anything like the stereotype -- the emphasis on the upper register is strong throughout: see circled notes. At the end, the clarinets and oboes separate, the clarinets again holding to the upper register, but all confirm the cadence with a resounding ^7-^6-^7-^8 -- see circled notes in the fourth system.

The contredanse finale is so strict in its design that it could easily be danceable (indeed, its 124 bars, or 140 with repeats in the first presentation of the theme, are about the right minimal length for a dance). In the small-binary form theme (8 + 8), the oboes bring the melody down in both strains, but -- as they did in the first movement -- the clarinets insist on the upper register. They do so in the most direct possible way in the first strain.

The design of the whole is ABACA-coda1-A-coda2. In every case, the theme (A) is repeated without change. Section B is 20 bars (taking into account the half bar), C is 16, the codas are 8 bars each.