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KARL DITTERS VON DITTERSDORF (1739-1799) , See also: Austrian composer and violinist, was, See also: born in Vienna on the 2nd of See also: November 1739, his See also: father's name being Ditters
.
Having shown as a See also: child marked talent for the See also: violin, he was allowed to See also: play in the orchestras of St See also: Stephen's and the Schottenkirche, where he attracted the See also: attention of a notable See also: patron of See also: music, See also: Prince See also: Joseph See also: Frederick of See also: Hildburghausen (1702-1787), who is also remembered as a soldier for his disastrous leading of the forces of the See also: Empire at See also: Rossbach
.
The prince gave thtboy, now eleven years-old, a place in his private orchestra—the first of the kind established in Vienna,—and also saw to it that he received an excellent general See also: education
.
The Seven Years' War proved disastrous to both music and morals; and See also: young Ditters, who had fallen into evil ways, fled from Hildburghausen, whither he had gone with the prince, to avoid the payment of his gambling debts
.
His patron generously forgave and recalled him, but soon afterwards gave up his orchestra at Vienna
.
Ditters now obtained a place in the Vienna See also: opera; but he was not satisfied, and in 1761 eagerly accepted an invitation to accompany See also: Gluck, whose acquaintance, as well as that of See also: Haydn, he had made while in the service of the prince, on a professional journey to See also: Italy
.
His success as a violinist on this occasion was equal to that of Gluck as composer; and on his return to Vienna he was recognized as the See also: superior of Antonio Lolli, who as virtuoso had hitherto held the palm
.
In 1764 he was again associated with Gluck in the musical See also: part of the ceremonies at See also: Frankfort, attending the See also: coronation of the archduke Joseph as See also: King of the
See also: Romans
.
His next See also: appointment was that of conductor of the orchestra of the See also: bishop of Grosswardein, a Hungarian magnate, at Pressburg
.
He set up a private stage in the episcopal palace, and wrote for it his first " opera buffa," Amore in musica
.
His first See also: oratorio, Isacco figura del Redenlore, was also written during this See also: time; but the See also: scandal of performances of See also: light opera by the bishop's See also: company, even on fast days and during Advent, out-weighed this pious effort; the empress Maria See also: Theresa sharplycalled the worldly prelate to See also: order ; and he, in a huff, dismissed his orchestra (r76g)
.
After a See also: short interlude, Ditters was again in the service of an ecclesiastical patron, count von Schafgotsch, prince bishop of See also: Breslau, at his estate of Johannesberg in See also: Silesia
.
Here he displayed so much skill as a sportsman, that the bishop procured for him the office of forester (Forstmeister) of the principality ofSee also: Neisse
.
He had already, by the same influence, been made knight of the See also: Golden Spur (1770)
.
At Johannesberg Hitters also produced a comic opera, Il Viaggiatore americano, and an oratorio, Davide
.
The title role of the latter was taken by a See also: pretty See also: Italian See also: singer, Signora Nicolini, whom Ditters married
.
In 1773 he was ennobled as Karl von Dittersdorf, and at the same time was appointed See also: administrator (Amtskauptmann) of Freyenwaldau, an office which he performed by deputy
.
In the same See also: year his oratorio Ester was produced in Vienna
.
During the War of Bavarian Succession the prince bishop's orchestra was dissolved, and Dittersdorf employed himself in his office at Freyenwaldau ; but after the See also: peace of See also: Tetschen (1779) he again became conductor of the reconstituted orchestra
.
From this time forward his output was enormous
.
In 1780 ten months sufficed for the production of his Giobbe (See also: Job) and four operas, three of which were successful ; and besides these he wrote a large number of " characterized symphonies," founded on the Metamorphoses of Ovid
.
He was now at the height of his fame, and spent the See also: fortune which it brought him in much luxury
.
But after a time his patron See also: fell on evil days, the famous orchestra had to be. reduced, and when the bishop died in 1795 his successor dismissed the composer with a small See also: money gift
.
Poor and broken in See also: health, he accepted the See also: asylum offered to him by Ignaz Freiherr von Stillfried, on his estate near Neuhaus in Bohemia, where he spent what strength was See also: left him in a feverish effort to make money by the composition of operas, symphonies and pianoforte pieces
.
He died on the 1st of See also: October 1799, praying " See also: God's See also: reward " for whoever should save his See also: family from See also: starvation
.
On his See also: death-See also: bed he dictated to his son his Lebensbeschreibung (autobiography)
.
Dittersdorf's chief talent was for comic opera and instrumental music in the See also: sonata forms
.
In both of these branches his See also: work still shows signs of See also: life, and it is of See also: great See also: historical See also: interest, since he was not only an excellent musician and a friend of Haydn but also a thoroughly popular writer, with a lively enough musical wit and sense of effect to embody in an amusing and fairly See also: artistic See also: form exactly what the best popular intelligence of the times saw in the new artistic developments of Haydn
.
Thus, while in the amiable monotony and diffuseness of See also: Boccherini we may trace Haydn as a force tending to disintegrate the polyphonic suite-forms of instrumental music, in Dittersdorf on the other See also: hand we see the popular conception of the See also: modern sonata and dramatic See also: style
.
Yet, with all his popularity, the reality of his progressive outlook may be gauged from the fact that, though he was at least as famous a violinist as Boccherini was a violoncellist, there is in his See also: string quartets no trace of that tendency to sacrifice the ensemble to an See also: exhibition of his own playing which in Boccherini's chamber music puts the violoncello into the same position as the first violin in the chamber music of See also: Spohr
.
In Dittersdorf's quartets (at least six of which are worthy of their survival at the See also: present See also: day) the first violin leads indeed, but not more than is inevitable in such unsophisticated music where the normal place for melody is at the top
.
The appearance of greater vitality in the texture of Boccherini's quintets is produced merely by the fact that, his See also: special instrument being the violoncello, his displays of brilliance inevitably occur in the inner parts
.
Six of Dittersdorf's symphonies on the Metamorphoses of Ovid were republished in 1899, the centenary of his death
.
In them we have an amusing and sometimes charming See also: illustration of the way in which at transitional periods music, as at the present day, is ready to make crutches of literature
.
The end of the See also: representation of the conversion of the Lycian peasants into frogs is prophetically and ridiculously Wagnerian in its ingenious expansion of rhythm and eminently expert orchestration
.
Every See also: external feature of Dittersdorf's style seems admirably See also: apt for success in See also: German comic opera on a small See also: scale ; and an occasional experimental
performance at the present day of his Doktor and Apotheker is not less his due than the survival of his best quartets
.
See his Lebensbeschreibung, published at See also: Leipzig, 18or (See also: English See also: translation by A
.
D
.
See also: Coleridge, 1896) ; an article in the Rivista musicale, vi
.
727; and the article Dittersdorf in See also: Grove's
See also: Dictionary of Music and Musicians
.
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