Barnabás Kelemen & Liszt Academy String Orchestra Presented by Liszt Academy

In Italian, divertimento means amusement, entertainment, a ‘diversion’. It was first used in a musical context in the late 17th century as a way of defining contemporary collections of light music. There were no strict rules on the number and form of movements of works generally written for larger chamber, or smaller orchestral ensembles. The genre enjoyed its golden age during the time of the First Viennese School, when it became an essential part of society life. Despite this, more intimate, lyrical parts were already apparent in the slower movements of divertimentos by Mozart. The genre itself gradually fell out of fashion in the early 19th century but the term has survived. In Bartók’s case, the title is probably reference to the mood of the first and last movements (such carefree music is a rare occurrence in his oeuvre) and in the case of Weiner, to the core material he used (early Hungarian dances).