Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf: Symphony in B flat major, Petr Chromčák (conductor)

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf - Symphony in B flat major, Czech Chamber Philharmonic, Petr Chromčák (conductor); rec. June 2012 I. Presto assai – 00:00 II. Andante – 07:07 III. Menuetto – 11:57 IV. Presto – 14:16 Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739 -1799) was born August Carl Ditters in Vienna, to a middle-class family whose primary breadwinner was the tailor for several regiments in the Austrian Army. Through the father’s hard work and ingenuity, this tailor’s son was provided an excellent education. Young August Carl attended Jesuit school and took private lessons in music, violin, religion, and French, things quite unusual for a middle-class child in mid-18th-century Vienna. Ditters later held several posts in which he gained enough recognition that Austrian Empress Maria Theresa’s conductor of her court theater hired him as violinist for the court orchestra. In 1762, he became the conductor of that orchestra and soon became acquainted with Christoph Willibald Gluck, a composer who had recently gained fame with his opera Orfeo ed Euridice. The two traveled to Italy together, where Ditters learned about contemporary Italian music styles, some of which he eventually adopted for his style of composition. After meeting the famed composer Joseph Haydn, who soon became his best friend, Ditters began associating with the best and most famous musicians in Vienna. Haydn and he, both playing violin, soon joined Mozart on viola and Ditters’ student Johann Vanhal on cello, playing...