Here is a great composer, ignored, forgotten and dismissed.
But why?
He was a composer of wit and comedy. His music has a great vivacity
and is full or originality and invention. There is abounding melody
and irresistible spontaneity.
In his day he was more admired than Haydn and Mozart.
At one time, he was the darling of his contemporaries and hated by
others who were jealous of him. He was vilified without cause and it
undermined his health. Even to this day lesser composers and musicians
are praised and greater musicians are unheeded.
He was born Karl Ditters on 2 November 1739 in Vienna where he studied
with Konig and Ziegler but he was too good so that by the age of ten
they could teach him no more. Ziegler had his pupil in the orchestra
of St Stephen's Cathedral and in the Schottenkirch.
He grew up in comfortable circumstances and attended a Jesuit school.
He took up the violin at the age of seven.
Such an incredible talent could not go unnoticed. Young Karl was recommended
to the private orchestra of Prince Joseph Friedrich von Saschsen-Hildburghausen
who was a highly educated and cultured man. He began to look after the
11 year old from 1 March 1751 obtaining the services of Giuseppe Bonno,
the court composer, to instruct him in music and the counterpoint methods
of Fux and the services of Giuseppe Trani to instruct him further in
violin playing. The prince also had the boy learn foreign languages,
dancing, fencing and riding.
Karl was very privileged.
But in 1759 when Karl was 19, the prince disbanded his orchestra and
secured a place for the teenager in the Opera Company sponsored by the
Empress and therefore known as the Empress's Opera. The director of
this establishment was Court Durazzo. But the young man wanted to see
more of the world and its music and not be parochial. In 1761 he set
out with Gluck on a professional tour of Italy. In early 1764 he set
off again with Gluck and Guadagni to Frankfurt on Maine for the election
and coronation of Archduke Joseph as king of the Romans. The splendour
enthused Karl and he played twice at court with tremendous success.
Here was a twenty three year old with staggering talent.
Christoph Willibald von Gluck is a great composer, notable, in my view,
for the fact that his music does not sound eighteenth century, when,
of course, it was written, but sounds more modern.
On Ditters’ return to Vienna the rude and gruff manager of the theatre
there, one Count Wenzel Spork, made Ditters kapellmeister to the Bishop
of Grosswardein at Pressburg in place of Michael Haydn who had left
for Salzburg. For his new master he composed symphonies, violin concertos,
string quartets and his first oratorio, an adaptation by the Bishop
himself of Metastasio's Isacco figura del Rodentore.
Ditters started a small theatre company in the castle for which he
wrote much including his first comic opera Amore in musica. But in 1769
the Bishop was rebuked by the Empress for his laxity and dismissed the
whole company.
At Troppau Ditters met Count Schafgotsch, Prince-Bishop of Breslau,
who invited him to his estate at Johannisberg where he was living in
retirement and something of isolation as he had suffered some disgrace.
Ditters, who was a real gentleman, cheered up the despondent Count with
music, formed an orchestra, engaged singers, established a theatre,
wrote operas and oratorios and joined his patron in hunting,
In 1770 in return for services to the Bishop of Grosswardein Ditters
was made Knight of the Golden Spur (as were, at various times, Gluck
and Mozart). Ditters was also made Amtshauptmann of Freidwaldau in 1773,
the Overseer of Forests and Chief Magistrate, and had nobility conferred
upon him by the Empress Maria Theresa with the title Karl Ditters von
Dittersdorf. The oratorio Davidde and the comic opera Il vraggiatore
americano were composed about this time. While rehearsing these works
he fell in love with a singer called Nicolini whom he had engaged from
Vienna and married her.
On his next visit to Vienna in 1773 he composed the oratorio Esther
to words by Abbe Pintus for two concerts on 19 and 21 December 1773
respectively. This was in aid of the widows of the Tonkunstler Societat.
He also played a concerto of his own which delighted Emperor Joseph
II who expressed a wish that on the death of the ailing Gassman he would
wish to appoint Ditters in his place. Gassmann died on 22 January 1774
but Ditters was too proud or too self-assuming to apply for the post.
Florian Leopold Gassmann was born in Brux in Bohemia in 1723 and was
a pupil of Martini in Bologna. He was a court musician in Venice and
later a composer for Vienna ballet and the court kappellmeister from
1772. He composed over 20 symphonies and had the distinction of teaching
the great Salieri.
But to return to Ditters, on 8 and 9 April 1786 he conducted his Giobbe
(Job) which was also written for the Tonkunstler Societat. It was later
produced in Berlin during 1789.
On another visit to Vienna in 1786 he introduced one of his symphonies
after Ovid. He wrote twelve in his canon of 115 symphonies. The Ovid
symphonies were a natural choice for a man so immersed in the theatre.
Some discontents have dismissed them as merely programme music.
But they are stunning original and originality is a main essential
to being a great composer.
As an example of his symphonic output and wit, one symphony was entitled
The Delirium of Composers!
Perhaps his most successful opera, out of about 40, was Doctor und
Apotheker, which is really an operetta, with a libretto by Gottlieb
Stephanie based on a French play L'Apothicaire de Marcia. The operetta
was first produced in Vienna on 11th July 1786.
The Bishop's band at Johannisberg, having been dismissed due to one
of the French revolutionary wars, had reassembled after the peace of
Teschen in 1779 and Ditters was taken back. Around 1790 he had to attend
to duties at Freidwaldau and during his absence his enemies slandered
him to the Bishop.
Another aspect of Ditter's commendable character was that he personally
nursed the Bishop during his long illness until he died in 1795. Thereafter
he was sacked with 500 florins which money soon went since Ditters own
health was a major problem ( he suffered from severe arthritis) and
he visited the health baths regularly in the hope of restoring himself.
With his family he went to the asylum at the house of Count Ignaz von
Stillfried at Rothlotta near Neuhof in Bohemia still hopeful that his
health would improve. Here, despite constant suffering from both arthritis
and depression, he composed many works and dictated his autobiography
to his son which was completed two days before his death on 24 October
1799, nine days short of his 60th birthday.
Copyright Dr David C F Wright. This article must not be reproduced
or stored, downloaded or used in any way without the prior permission
of the author. It is hoped that this article will be expanded later.
RECORDINGS TO SAMPLE
Olympia OCD426 Symphonies in E minor, E flat, E, D, and the Five Nation
symphony
Naxos 8553368 & 9 Six Symphonies after Ovid
Naxos 8553974 Symphonies in F, D minor and G minor
Naxos 8553975 Symphony The Delirium of Composers
Symphony The Battle of Human passion
Symphony Five nations
Ars Musici Requiem. Lauretanische Litanie
AM11582
CPO 9997902 Job
CPO 9991222 String Quartets 2 and 6. String Quintets in C and G.
CPO 9990382 String Quartets 1, 3 and 5.
This does not necessarily mean that all the recordings have my personal
recommendation.
