Trio Zimmermann Plays Mozart's Divertimento

Trio Zimmermann: Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin; Antoine Tamestit , viola; Christian Poltéra, cello

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Divertimento in E flat major, K563 (1788); Franz Schubert: String Trio in B flat major, D471 (1816)

Wholenote Discoveries - February 2011
You only have to listen to Mozart’s string quintets to appreciate that the string quartet does not have sole claim to the ‘perfect string family’ designation, and the same composer’s Divertimento in E flat K563, for Violin, Viola and Cello, proves conclusively that ‘one less’ can be just as satisfying as ‘one more’. Violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann only formed the Trio Zimmermann with violist Antoine Tamestit and cellist Christian Poltera in 2007, but their playing on this Super Audio CD is simply remarkable; you would think they had spent a lifetime playing together. Despite its title, this Divertimento is a large-scale string trio. A mature work from 1788, its 6-movement structure follows that of the whimsical Divertimento popular in Vienna at the time, but musically and emotionally it’s in a different world. The Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein went so far as to call this work “the most perfect and the finest that has ever manifested itself in this world.” Listening to this enthralling and beautifully recorded performance, it’s hard to disagree. Schubert’s String Trio in B flat, D471 – actually a single Allegro opening movement for a work started and abandoned in 1816 – completes a marvellous CD. Terry Robbins
Each instrument is primus inter pares, every note is significant ...' is how the scholar Alfred Einstein described W.A. Mozart's Divertimento in E flat major for string trio. What other work could then be more suitable for the first disc of a star-studded ensemble such as Trio Zimmermann, in which each member is very definitely first among equals? Composed in the same year as the three final symphonies, Mozart's only real trio for violin, viola and cello is a weighty work - six movements and close to 50 glorious minutes of music - and the fact that Mozart chose the title Divertimento (from the Italian divertire: to amuse) for a piece of these dimensions has often been remarked upon. But to Mozart, there was no real dividing line between 'serious' art and pleasure or amusement - and so, to quote Einstein once more, he gave us 'the most perfect, finest thing that has ever been heard in this world'. To round off the disc, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Antoine Tamestit and Christian Poltéra have chosen to record Franz Schubert's first contribution to the string trio genre, the opening - and only complete - movement (Allegro) of his String Trio in B flat major, D 471, written in 1816 when the composer was only nineteen.

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