Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Kr. 73 "Ovid": III. Menuetto Con Garbo - Alternativo

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Ovid Symphonies Edition with the original 1785 parts for Trumpets and Timpani re-integrated.

BOOKLET CONTENT
1. The works by von Dittersdorf in this Album
2. The first three Symphonies after Ovid: content
3. The first three Symphonies after Ovid: history and importance
4. The Symphony Kr. 24 and the Ballet Kr. 135
5. A selected bibliography
6. Production Notes
7. The original latin text for the Ovid Symphonies
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1. The works by von Dittersdorf in this Album

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739 -1799)

3 Symphonies after Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1781-1786):
Ovid Symphony N. 1 Kr. 73 in C major - The Four Ages of the World
Ovid Symphony N. 2 Kr. 74 in D major - The Fall of Phaethon
Ovid Symphony N. 3 Kr. 75 in G major - Transformation of Actaeon into a Stag

Symphony Kr. 24 in E flat major (1769)

Musique pour un petit ballet en forme d'une contre-danse Kr. 135 in D major (date unknown)
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2. The first three Symphonies after Ovid: content

Ovid Symphony N.1 - The Four Ages of the World
[1] The symphony opens with a bright Larghetto, representing the fabulous Golden Age: ‘First was the Golden Age. Then rectitude spontaneous in the heart prevailed, and faith. Avengers were not seen, for laws unframed were all unknown and needless. Punishment and fear of penalties existed not’. [2] Then an Allegro e vivace intensely describes the Silver Age, dominated by the need and the frenzy of production and possession: ‘All the world was ruled by Jove supreme, the Silver Age, though not so good as gold but still surpassing yellow brass, prevailed. Jove first reduced to years the Primal Spring, by him divided into periods four, unequal, summer, autumn, winter, spring. […] Then were the cereals planted in long rows, and bullocks groaned beneath the heavy yoke’. Now humanity falls in the dark Age of Bronze. [3] The gloomy Minuetto con garbo, so, describes the violence of the oppressors, and the sorrowful Alternativo the cry and lament of the oppressed people: ‘The third Age followed, called The Age of Bronze, when cruel people were inclined to arms but not to impious crimes’. [4] The coming of the Iron Age ignites an era of War, depicted by the final Prestissimo, and then the Allegretto represents the Triumph of Winners and the cry and lament of the Defeated people: ‘And last of all the ruthless and hard Age of Iron prevailed, from which malignant vein great evil sprung […] and War […] came forth and shook with sanguinary grip his clashing arms. […] Piety was slain: and last of all the virgin deity, Astraea vanished from the blood-stained earth’.

Ovid Symphony N.2 - The Fall of Phaethon
[1] The marvelous introduction Adagio non molto depicts the arrival of Phaethon at the Palace of the god of the Sun and then the mighty Allegro, which is built upon a few thematic ideas, re-used by Mozart a few years later for his Jupiter Finale, describes the rich and shining Palace of the Sun: ‘The Palace of the Sun was raised high on lofty columns, and shone with burnished gold and a flaming metal alloy of gold and copper. Its top was covered with polished ivory, and the folding gates diffused a silver light’. [2] The following Andante represents the dialogue between Phaethon and his father, the Sun: Phaethon asks his father to drive the chariot of the sun, and his father is not really convinced to give his permission: ‘When hi father, putting off the rays that shone all around his head, commanded him to advance, and embracing him: ‘Yes, says he, you are my son; you deserve that name, nor has Climene deceived you in the account of your birth. To remove all further doubt, make qhat request you please, that you may obtain it of me by a ready compliance […] he asks his father’s chariot’. [3] The Minuetto and Alternativo describes the different feelings of the father and of the son: the father is angry and wishes he hadn’t sworn (Minuetto), the son, Phaethon, is happy (Alternativo). ‘The sire repented of the oath he had taken, and shaking thrice his radiant head: Alas, my son, the promise I made you is become rash by your request; I wish it were in my power to recall what I have said. […] Here the father ended his admonitions: but Phaethon, regardless of what he said, still holds to his purpose, and burns with impatience to mount the chariot.’ [4] The charming dramatic Vivace ma non troppo presto opens with its description of Jove, angry with Phaethon, who recollets his stormy power and then thunders and hurls his thunderbolt at the charioteer. Phaethon falls and you can hear the spinning of the disconnected wheels and elements of the chariot. The movement ends with a calm Andantino: the normal course of the sun and of the day have been re-established. ‘[Jove] mounts the lofty citadel of heaven, whence he was wont to spread over the spacious earth the gathering clouds: whence he rolls his thunder, and darts the brandished lightning. But then neither had he clouds to spread over the earth, nor showers to pour down from the vault of the heaven. He thunders, and with lifted arm hurls against the charioteer the forky brand, driving him at once from life […] The horses affrighted start with a sudden bound, shake the yoke from off their necks, and disengage themselves from the broken harness. Here lie the reins, there the axle-tree, torn from the pole; on one side the spokes of the wheels dashed in pieces, and all around the fragments of the shattered chariot. […] Him [Phaethon] the mighty Po receives, […] and with rolling waves washes his glowing face.’

Ovid Symphony N.3 - Transformation of Actaeon into a Stag
[1] The symphony opens with a magnificent hunt-movement, an Allegro characterized by the peculiar hunt-type thematic material of the strings and especially of the horns and the oboes. It represents Actaeon, his friends and their dogs wandering through the forest, during a hunting game: ‘When the the Hyanthian youth (i.e. Acteon) thus with mild accent addressed the companions of his sports, as they were ranging the pathless haunts of the wild beasts: Our nets, companions, and spears are wet with the slaughter of wild beasts hath yielded us sufficient sport’. [2] Then a charming and rarefied Adagio describes the goddess Diana, while bathing in the waters of a secret grotto in the forest, the solo flute representing Diana and the strings with sordini the fresh calm waters of the grotto: ‘In the extreme recess hereof was a grotto, thick-shaded by surrounding trees […] On the right-hand a fountain murmurs along, transparent by its limpid stream, which by degrees swelling into a lake, is edged round with a border of grass. Here the goddess of the woods, weary with hunting, was wont to bathe her virgin limbs in the silver stream. When she had entered this cool retreat, she gave to one of the nymphs her armour bearer, her dart, her quiver too, and unstrung bow; another put her arms under her cloak as it was let down; two loosed her sandals from her feet […]’. [3] The Minuetto narrates of Acteon entering the grotto and watching Diana bathing and the Alternativo depicts the ecstatic beauty of Diana: ‘While the Titanian goddess here bathes in the wonted stream, lo the grandson of Cadmus, who deferred the finishing of his sport till next day, wandering with uncertain steps through the unknown grove, came into this retired grotto; so his fate directed him. How soon he entered the cave whence the springs distilled on every side, the nymphs as they were naked, upon seeing a man smote their breasts, and filled all the grove with sudden shriekings; and pressing round Diana, covered her with their bodies; but the goddess considerably taller than they, surpasses them all by the head’. [4] In the highly dramatic last movement, Vivace, Acteon, after having been cursed by Diana, tries to flee through the forest, but he is transformed into a stag, and his own hounds mistakenly take him for an animal and chase him through the forest and, when they reach him, kill him, by tearing his flesh and body apart: ‘Now all over covered with wounds, he groans, and complains, if not in the tone of a man, yet in such as could not come from a stag; and fills the well known mountains with his dismal moans. […] But his companions, ignorant of what had chanced, encourage the eager pack with the usual cries […] He wished indeed he had been absent; and that he had only seen, and not felt, the cruel bites of his dogs. They gather round him on all sides, and burying their jaws in his body, tear in pieces their master, under the figure of a deceitful stag. Nor was the rage of the quiver-bearing goddess appeased, till he had ended his life by an infinity of wounds’.
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3. The first three Symphonies after Ovid: history and importance

Von Dittersdorf wrote 12 Symphonies after Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the period between 1781 and 1786. Already published in 1785, a group of them was performed and was circulating throughout Europe, before the Viennese premiere.

The 12 Symphonies premiered in Vienna on 13 May 1786 at the Augarten (first group of 6 Symphonies: 1 to 6) and on 20 May 1786 at the Kaerntnerthortheater (second group of 6 Symphonies: 7 to 12), performed by an orchestra of 40 members directly paid by von Dittersdorf. The event was patronized by the famous Baron van Swieten, patron also of Mozart and of other Viennese musicians, and the Austrian Emperor himself, Joseph II, after a private interview with von Dittersdorf.

The first 3 Ovid Symphonies formed the first part of the first Concert.
The historical importance of this Concert in 1786 goes beyond the simple presentation of such innovative characteristic symphonies before the Viennese audience and is due to the fact that von Dittersdorf, for the first time, conceived the idea of a public performance of a group of structured and related symphonies as a unique cultural event based on symphonies only and nothing else, that’s to say, that there were no vocal arias performances and no instrumental concertos, no other musical forms to be mixed-up with the symphonies during the concert. This choice reveals the capacity of von Dittersdorf of foreseeing not only which kind of structural power and of intellectual relevance was hidden in the very symphony itself as an independent musical form (while, at his time, it was considered a peripherical pure entertainment experience and sometimes ancillary to other forms like the solo concertos or the opera), but also of exploring the unlimited possibilities of transforming poetry into music and of spreading thus also social or personal ideas and programmes through the means of the so called characteristic symphony, a type of musical form which requested a great ability and imagination in inventing and exploring new musical form schemes and of discovering new sounds and orchestra effects.

So this 1786 concert was that very tiny seed which was going to give birth to a whole musical experience in the years to come until today. With Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler, symphonies reached their emotional and intellectual acme and, with Liszt and the group of his followers and estimators, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky among them, the characteristic symphony completely broke its own shell, transforming itself into the symphonic poem. And what about the exploration of new sounds and musical effects and combinations, which is still the terrain of challenge of contemporary music? When von Dittersdorf chose the Metamorphoses by Ovid for his ‘musical painting’ (the musikalische Malerei!, the well known treatise by Engel was among von Dittersdorf’s readings), he felt the world and the music were going to face an inevitable series of radical transformations: it is a matter of fact, that, in 1786, while new countries were clearly affirming their right to self-determination, political independence and to a new course for human rights, the French Ancien Regime monarchy was going to live its last days and years of feudal medieval enchanted total non-conscience, before the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. A ‘metamorphosis of a whole social order’ was going to bring in a new Era, the modern one, finally getting rid of the last Medieval heritage.

Under this respect, the choice of the Ovid Symphonies was an ambitious and bold one for its time. Even though von Dittersdorf had never enganged in any explicit political positions and was a newly accepted representative of the aristocratic class, he was going to address these symphonies to an audience, who generally and widely considered waltz and sturm und drang poetry and music politically dangerous and socially subversive art manifestations.

Despite the words by Coleridge in his preface to his translation of von Dittersdorf’s Autobiography (1896), it is a matter of fact that von Dittersdorf was among those few composers who wrote some music dedicated to the French Revolution events and in particular to ‘La Prise de la Bastille’.

Probably, as subtly suggested by Will and Rice, von Dittersdorf was using his dark and emotional interpretation of the Metamorphoses by Ovid, with its tales of guilty people who got violently punished, to warn his aristocratic audience of the social transformations they were going to face, of a possible radical change, a dramatic metamorphosis, of the world they know. And Mozart, in the same year 1786 and in the same month, was not he doing a similar operation with his Le Nozze di Figaro? And did they both somehow pay for that, after 1789?

But the Ovid Symphonies were innovative, not only for their intellectual and social background and for their impact on the general habit of considering the symphonic form, but also for their musical and dramatic stylistic content and their orchestra treatment, which, as Abert pointed out, were largely inspirational to Mozart himself (‘the numerous and striking reminiscences of Mozart… not only the melodic writing, but above all the dramatic treatment of the orchestra’ Abert, p. 1015). The golden musical style of von Dittersdorf, already well defined in the 1760s (well before Mozart’s great works and Haydn’s tempora mutantur), is here re-affirmed and the thematic material, that can be found here or in other works by von Dittersdorf, is frequently re-used by Mozart: the Adagio structure of the third symphony was re-used for the 1790 Così fan tutte (see Will); in the 1787 opera Don Giovanni one can easily recognize elements and effects from the first symphony and from the third symphony; in the second symphony we can discover themes, which re-appear in Mozart’s sonatas, and many musical elements, which, with the Fuga from the Notturno for 4 flutes and other von Dittersdorf’s works, form an inspirational material behind the 1788 Jupiter symphony by Mozart.

Moreover, with his symphonies von Dittersdorf re-affirmed also the importance and the dynamic value of the Minuet within the symphonic structure, defending thus his friend Haydn’s choice and re-inventing an extremely dramatic and narrative role for the Minuet movement: above all the dark, mysterious and hypnotic minuet of the Ovid Symphony N. 1, in minor key and representing the violence and aggressiveness of the oppressors (Minuet) and the lament and tears of the oppressed people (Alternativo/Trio and Coda) (and the same heavy narrative loom is in all the other Ovid Symphonies minuets). So von Dittersdorf demonstrated again the ductility and the power of music against the detractors of Haydn and of the symphonic minuets, like the musical theorist Carl Spazier, who wanted to remove ‘the dance style movement’ from the serious music (!?). The symphonic structure set by Haydn, inventor also of the scherzo, a metamorphosed minuet, was now clearly re-affirmed, ready for the titanic and heroic experience of Beethoven.

‘Conscious as I am that my name and my works are known throughout all Europe, I may assume that I have given pleasure to half a million of people in this inhabited portion of the world.’ From von Dittersdorf’s Autobiography 1799-1801

Von Dittersdorf, a friend of Haydn, was a well known violin virtuoso and, as a composer, a representative of the Gluckian school, a composer of symphonies (ca. 120) and of successful singspiel operas and the teacher of other composers, like the famous Vanhal, one of Mozart’s favourite composers, Pichl and Mueller.

Haydn, von Dittersdorf, von Dittersdorf’s pupil Vanhal and Mozart were considered the major four composers of their time and it is well known that, during a social occasion at the house of Stephen Storace, friend of the Irish tenor Michael Kelly, they were re-united to play a quartet together.

Mozart and von Dittersdorf attended the same social events in Vienna, like the society concerts of Privy Court Councillor Franz Bernhard von Keess (1720-95). Von Dittersdorf preferred Mozart to Clementi and greatly considered Mozart both as pianist and as a composer.
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4. The Symphony Kr. 24 and the Ballet Kr. 135

The 1982 judgement of Paul Mies about von Dittersdorf’s symphonic music gives an idea of the importance and the influence of his music on his contemporaries: ‘the striving for unity, shown in the relationship of the themes and the employment of the principal motives in transitions, is noteworthy. It was certainly important for its time’.

And, if we consider that von Dittersdorf’s symphonies, like the Kr. 24, were written in the 1760s (the Kr. 24 in 1769), well before the great works by Mozart and the symphony N. 64 ‘Tempora mutantur’ by Haydn (ca. 1773), we understand how the neat, golden and solar style of von Dittersdorf may have influenced the taste of his contemporaries.

The charming and beautiful Symphony Kr. 24 in E flat major is mainly built around a horn signal, that evoked hunt atmospheres, hunt, the beloved sport of the principal audience of von Dittersdorf’s music, aristocracy. Here we find also a series of interesting experimentations of effects and of personal interpretations of the then so called ‘forma di sonata’ (Schultz 1775 and Galeazzi 1791-96), like the false recapitulation in the first movement development section and the bizarre dynamic structure of the fourth movement (Vivace – Adagio – Vivace – Adagio – Vivace). This symphony was also published as Op. 13 N. 2 (ca. 1780: Bailleux, Paris): in that occasion the second movement appeared as ‘Andante Poco Allegro’ instead of ‘Allegretto’, the ‘Alternativo’ as ‘Trio and the final movement as ‘Presto Vivace – Adagio – Tempo Primo – (Adagio) – Tempo Primo’ (indications for the first violins).

In the end, the nice and bright Ballet Kr. 135 gives an idea of the compositional ability and brilliance, that characterize von Dittersdorf’s music.
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5. A selected bibliography

Ditters von Dittersdorf C., Les Métamorphoses d'Ovide mises en musique par Mr. Charles Ditters noble de Dittersdorf, Vienna 1786
Ditters von Dittersdorf C., Lebensbeschreibung (Autobiography), Leipzig 1801

Krebs C., Dittersdorfiana, Berlin 1900

Abert H., W. A. Mozart, new edition revised, with additions and with appendices, by Spencer S. and Eisen C., Yale 2007
Breitkopf J. G. I., The Breitkopf thematic catalogue: the six parts and sixteen supplements 1762-1787, New York-Dover 1966
Dearling R., The music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the symphonies, East Brunswick-London-Toronto 1982
Engel J. J., Ueber die musikalische Malerei (1780), in Reden aesthetische Versuche, Berlin 1802
Gjerdingen R. O., Music in the galant style, Oxford 2007
Grave M., Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf 1739-1799, New York 1986
Grave M., First movement form as a measure of Dittersdorf's symphonic development, New York 1977
Grave M., The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians, New York 1980
Hepokoski J. and Darcy W., Elements of sonata theory: norms, types and deformations in the late-eighteenth-century sonata, Oxford 2006
Hermes J. T., Analyse de XII Metamorphoses tirées d'Ovide, et mise en musique par Charles Ditters de Dittersdorf, Breslau 1786
Horton J., The Cambridge companion to the symphony, Cambridge 2013
Jackson R., Performance practice: a dictionary guide for musicians, New York 2005
Lane J. D., The concertos of Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Michigan Ann Arbor 1997
Magarotto M., Strumenti e strumentazione negli Elementi teorico-pratici di musica (1791-1796) di Francesco Galeazzi, Milano 2004
Mersmann H. and Abraham G., The chamber music of Beethoven's contemporaries, in Abraham G., The new Oxford history of music, vol. VIII, The Age of Beethoven 1790-1830, Oxford 1982
Mies P., The orchestral music of Beethoven's contemporaries, in Abraham G., The new Oxford history of music, vol. VIII, The Age of Beethoven 1790-1830, Oxford 1982
Rice J. A., New light on Dittersdorf's Ovid symphonies, Studi musicali 29 (2000), 471-473
Rosen C., Sonata Forms, New York-Norton 1988
Rudolf M., On the performance of Mozart's Minuets, Friends of Mozart Newsletter (Fall 1984), xvii 1-4
Spazier C., Ueber Menuetten in Sinfonien, in Studien fuer Tonkuenstler und Musikfreunde, Berlin 1793
Will R. J., The characteristic symphony in the age of Haydn and Beethoven, Cambridge 2002
Wyn Jones D., Music in eighteenth-century Austria, Cambridge 1996
Zaslaw N., Mozart's symphonies: context, performance practice, reception, Oxford 1989
Zaslaw N., Mozart's tempo conventions, Copenhagen 1974
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6. Production Notes

Porticodoro/SmartCgArt is devoted to the musicological re-discovery and promotion of forgotten or neglected treasures of Classical Music.

This CD has been recorded by Porticodoro/SmartCgArt Media Productions with the most advanced digital performing techniques available in the Music Industry.
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7. The original latin text for the Ovid Symphonies

Ovid Symphony N.1 - The Four Ages of the World
Larghetto: The Golden Age [Metamorphoses 1,89: Aurea prima sata est]
Allegro vivace: The Silver Age [Met. 1,114-15: Subiit argentea proles, auro deterior]
Menuetto con garbo - Alternativo: The Bronze Age [Met. 1,125: Tertia post illam surrexit ahenea proles]
Prestissimo - Allegretto: The Iron Age [Met. 1,127: De duro est ultima ferro]

Ovid Symphony N.2 - The Fall of Phaethon
Adagio non molto - Allegro: [Met. 2,1: Regia Solis erat sublimibus alta columnis]
Andante: [Met. 2,41: Deposuit radios, propiusque accedere iussit]
Menuetto - Alternativo: [Met. 2,49: Penituit iurasse patrem]
Vivace, ma non troppo presto - Andantino: [Met. 2,311-12: Intonat et dextra libratum fulmen ab aure misit in aurigam]

Ovid Symphony N.3 - Transformation of Actaeon into a Stag
Allegro: [Met. 3,146-47: Cum iuvenis placido per devia lustra vagantes participes operum conpellat Hyantius ore]
Adagio piutosto andantino: [Met. 3,163-64: Dea silvarum venatu fessa solebat virgineos artus liquido perfundere rore]
Menuetto - Alternativo: [Met. 3,174: Ecce nepos Cadmi!]
Vivace: [Met. 3,250: Dilacerant falsi dominum sub imagine cervi!]