Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
Classical · 1739–1799
Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf was a working musician of Haydn and Mozart's Vienna: a violin virtuoso who spent most of his career as music director at aristocratic courts, first in Hungary and then for a prince-bishop in Silesia. Born plain Karl Ditters in Vienna in 1739, he acquired the noble "von Dittersdorf" when he was ennobled in 1773.
He was enormously productive and popular in his day, turning out symphonies, concertos, and comic operas in German that Viennese audiences loved. He moved in the same circles as Haydn and Mozart, and his memoirs, dictated at the end of his life, remain a lively eyewitness account of that musical world, even if his own music later slipped into the shadow of his friends'.
Start with the Double Bass Concerto in E flat major, a rare chance to hear the orchestra's biggest string instrument out front.
29 works in the catalog, across 3 genres. Log what you listen to with Opus, the classical music journal for iPhone.
Chamber
- Andante, for oboe and strings
- German Dance, for violin and piano
- String Quartet no. 1 in D
- String Quartet no. 2 in B flat major
- String Quartet no. 3 in G
- String Quartet no. 4 in C
- String Quartet no. 5 in E flat major
- String Quartet no. 6 in A
Orchestral
- Double Bass Concerto in E flat major
- Andantino for oboe and strings
- Double Bass Concerto no. 2 in D major, L.172
- Harp Concerto
- Sinfonia concertante in D major, for viola, double bass and orchestra
- Sinfonia in A
- Sinfonia in A, "Sinfonia nazionale nel gusto di cinque nazioni"
- Sinfonia in A minor, "Il delirio delli compositorì"
- Sinfonia in D
- Sinfonia in D major,, "Il Combatiimento delle passioni umani"
- Sinfonia in D minor, Grave d1
- Sinfonia in E flat major
- Sinfonia in F
- Sinfonia in G minor
- Symphony in A minor
- Symphony in C, "La Prise de la Bastille"
- Symphony in D
- Symphony no. 1 in C major, 'Die 4 Weltalter'
Vocal
- Litaniae laurentanae in D major, for voice, chorus and orchestra
- Motetto pro Offertorio in honorem St. Joanis Nepomuceni, for voice, chorus and orchestra
- Requiem in C minor, for voice, chorus and orchestra
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