Ioannis Fulias,
“The interrelation of
speech and music in Dittersdorf’s programmatic symphonies on Ovid’s Metamorphoses
(1781-1783)”, Musicología 22, Athens
2015, p. 400-412.
In early 1780s, Carl
Ditters von Dittersdorf conceived a grandiose plan: the composition of 15 programmatic symphonies,
based on myths from the equal in number books of Metamorphoses by the Latin poet Ovid. The present paper outlines the
implementation progress of this ambitious and original undertaking through all
available sources, which substantiate – in a manner unique to the standards of
the classic era – the precise intentions of the composer, as well as the
history of the dissemination and the reception of these innovative works.
Furthermore, particular reference is made to the way with which Dittersdorf
adapts the poetic text into the genre specifications of the classical symphony,
on the one hand, and the typical music forms for the different symphonic
movements into the needs of the particular programmatic contexts, on the other
hand. The selected examples are not only from the first six symphonies of the
cycle that are preserved in full orchestral form, but also from three more
symphonies that have arrived until today only in piano arrangements made by the
composer himself (three others have been lost in the meantime, while other three
have certainly never been written).
© Ioannis
Fulias