Dittersdorf, Carl Ditters von (1739-1799)

Dittersdorf (1739-1799) was one of the most prolific and versatile of Haydn's and Mozart's Viennese contemporaries. He was a formidable violinist - certainly the foremost virtuoso in Vienna during the early 1760s - and composed a substantial number of concertos for his own use particularly early in his career when he was seeking to establish his reputation as a composer.

In many respects Dittersdorf's violin concertos resemble those of his close contemporaries Haydn, Hofmann and Wanhal.

Structurally, they are fairly typical of the mid-18th-century Viennese concerto and much of their musical language is familiar to us from the works of other composers. They are attractive works and their occasional strange juxtaposition of contrasting melodic ideas was noted by Hiller as early as 1768.

The present work was advertised by Breitkopf in 1767 (Supplement II) along with the Violin Concerto in Bb (Lane 11) and a further work, a Violin Concerto in A. Given the usual time lag between a work's composition and its appearance in the Breitkopf Catalogue it is possible that all three concertos were written in Vienna prior to Dittersdorf's departure for Growardein in 1764.

Allan Badley