Ordonez: Symphonies

Toronto Co:Mallon

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Cat No: 8557482

Release Date: 01 January 2006

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313248223

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: ORDONEZ

Description
Karl von Ordonez (1734-1786): SymphoniesKarl von Ordonez cut a somewhat unusual figure in themusical life of eighteenth-century Vienna for unlike allof his important contemporaries he was not aprofessional musician. For most of his working life hewas employed by the Lower Austrian Regional Courtand his musical activities, both as a performer andcomposer, were pursued in his spare time. It was not, itseems, the promise of an exciting and glamorous careerin local government that was responsible for luring himaway from life as a professional musician but rather thecircumstances of his birth. Ordonez's family belongedto the minor nobility and as such a professional musicalcareer would not have befitted a man of his rank.However much talent might have been admired inViennese society - and one close contemporary ofOrdonez, Carl Ditters, was even raised to the ranks ofthe nobility by the Empress - an enormous gulfseparated the meanly-born professional musician fromeven the minor nobility. Mozart felt this acutely anddecades later Beethoven, for all his self-professedegalitarianism, fought an unsuccessful legal battle toestablish his own claim to nobility. In the circumstancesit is perhaps unsurprising that Ordonez opted to pursuehis musical career as an amateur. This difference instatus did not in any way diminish his seriousness ofintent as a composer and his music has receivedsignificant attention from scholars in recent years.Nothing has come to light concerning Ordonez'sgeneral education although it seems likely that he wouldhave attended a Ritterakademie, a boarding-school forthe nobility, and, in preparation for a career in the civilservice, gone on to study law at the University ofVienna. Nor is anything known about his musicaltraining although his contemporary reputation as aviolinist suggests that he studied the instrument from anearly age and, no doubt, was also a proficient keyboardplayer.Of his training in composition it is not possibleeven to hazard a guess.Ordonez's professional activities includedmembership of two prestigious performing bodies, thek.k. Hof- und Kammermusik (where he was employedas a Kammermusikus) and the Tonk??nstler-Societat inwhich he was active both as a violinist and as acomposer. Ordonez was one of the earliest members ofthe Tonk??nstler-Societat, an organisation devoted toraising money through public concerts for the widowsand orphans of musicians, and maintained a closeassociation from 1771, the year of its foundation, until1784. He also performed regularly in the houses of thenobility. Dr Charles Burney heard him play at a musicaldinner party in 1772 held in the residence of the BritishAmbassador in Vienna, Lord Stormont, and reported:Between the vocal parts of this delightful concert, wehad some exquisite quartets, by Haydn, executed in theutmost perfection; the first violin by M. Startzler[J. Starzer], who played the Adagios with uncommonfeeling and expression; the second violin by M.Ordonetz; Count Br??hl play
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