Ioannis Fulias, “The myth of Phaethon in classic and romantic
instrumental programme music: Dittersdorf and Saint-Saëns”, in: Ioannis
Fulias and Theodoros Kitsos (ed.), Ancient myths and music creation (Symposium proceedings, Thessaloniki, 21 & 22 October 2012), Faculty of Music Studies at the University
of Athens, Athens 2014, p. 65-82.
The myth of Phaethon, son of Sol (Phoebus), who asked for and received as
a favour by his father the permission to drive for one day the chariot of the
sun in the sky, but failed to control its route and forced Jupiter to
precipitate him with a thunderbolt before the total destruction of the earth,
was used as a subject-matter in several operas and other stage works during the
17th and 18th centuries; the most important among these were the music tragedy Phaëton
(1683) by Jean-Baptiste Lully and the opera seria Fetonte
(1768) by Niccolò Jommelli. However, the present paper deals with two
later instrumental compositions – the programmatic symphony The
fall of Phaethon (1781) by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf and the symphonic
poem Phaéton (1873) by Camille
Saint-Saëns – which, in particular, are among the most representative
programmatic works in the classic and the romantic music repertoire,
respectively. Their analytical review is made with constant references to both
the classical source of Metamorphoses
by the Latin poet Ovid and the comments of the composers themselves that
accompany their works, in order to attempt a thorough but also valid
interpretation of their extra-musical content. Finally, common elements but also
differences observed in Dittersdorf’s and Saint-Saëns’ approaches of
myth are pointed out, and the main means of the implementation of the given
programme in one and the other case are comparatively examined.
© Ioannis
Fulias