Carl ditters von dittersdorf biography of williams
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Carl Ditters (later Baron von Dittersdorf) was one of the most prolific and versatile of the Viennese contemporaries of Haydn and Mozart. In his early professional career in Vienna, fascinatingly described in his autobiography (1799), Ditters was considered the leading violin virtuoso and performed regularly in concerts staged at the Burgtheater.
His compositions were also attracting favourable notice and by the early 1760s he was regarded, along with Hofmann, Haydn and Vanhal, as one of the leading lights in Viennese music. Although most of his career was spent working outside Vienna, isolated and somewhat removed from the main stream, Ditters's reputation did not suffer.
His instrumental music circulated widely and his vocal music, in particular his operas, operettas and Singspiels, enjoyed great popularity in Vienna and elsewhere. Through his patron's offices (Count Schaffgotsch, Prince-Bishop of Breslau) Ditters was created a Knight of the Golden Spur in 1770 and, two years
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“If music be the food of love, play on.” – William Shakespeare
Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739 - 1799) was an Austrian composer, violinist and forest ecologist. He was born in the Laimgrube (now Mariahilf) district of Vienna, Austria, as August Carl Ditters. His father was a military tailor in the Austrian Imperial Army of Charles oss, for a number of German-speaking regiments. After retiring honourably from his military obligation, he was provided with royal letters of reference and a sinecure with the Imperial Theatre. In 1745, the six-year-old August Carl was introduced to the violin and his father’s moderate financial position allowed him not only a good general education at a Jesuit school, but private tutelage in music, violin, French and religion. After leaving his first teacher, Carl studied violin with J. Ziegler, who by 1750, through his influence, secured his pupil’s appointment as a violinist in the orchestra of the Benedictine chur
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I love a good story, and I love it even more if that story is being told in music. And that’s particularly true of instrumental art music with an explicitly narrative content. I suppose that music always conveys or evokes emotions, but I very much enjoy it when a piece has a descriptive title to guide my imagination. So we thought it might be fun to listen to six fun and fanciful symphonies by the Austrian composer Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799).
Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
Dittersdorf was a highly respected musician and composer who rubbed shoulders with Haydn and Mozart in Vienna. He was a prolific maestro with a high reputation for writing dramatic works, especially the “Singspiel,” and he wrote much instrumental music, including roughly 120 symphonies, a series of concertos, and chamber music.
Dittersdorf set to work in 1783 to compose 12 programmatic symphonies depicting stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. That particular compendium of Greek and Roman mythology