Karl von Ordonez: Symphonies

L'arte del mondo

Released on 25/08/2017 by Sony Music Classical Local
Main artists: L'arte del mondo
Genre: Classical

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Even during his own day Karl von Ordoñez (1734-1789; also written Karl Ordoniz) was never anything other than a star of the third magnitude, though this was due less to his undoubted gifts as a musician and more to the fact that for a member of the lower aristocracy a career in music was deemed unseemly. He was born in Vienna in 1734 and became an Austrian civil servant in 1758. Between then and his retirement twenty-five years later he was described first as a registrar with the Lower Austrian Regional Court and later as a Recorder. In between these times he is also referred to by the delightful honorary title of “supernumerary secretary”. Meanwhile he was also playing the violin in music ensembles at the Viennese court. In 1771, for example, he became the sixtieth member to join the recently formed Tonkünstler-Societät, Vienna’s oldest concert organisation, which had set itself the task of holding concerts in support of the widows and orphans of deceased musicians. Ordoñez is also listed as a violinist in the Vienna Court Orchestra in 1779, and so we may assume that he was also active as a musician in the Tonkünstler-Societät. If so, then this must say something about the standard of his playing, since the society normally accepted only professional musicians into its ranks – in keeping with its statues, they had to be “devoted to the free art of music”. What is beyond doubt is that the society performed a symphony by Ordoñez in 1777 – he had also been appearing in public as a composer since the late 1750s.

When we consider that Ordoñez wrote music only in his spare time, the extent of his output is impressive: more than seventy symphonies have survived, some of which have occasionally been attributed to Joseph Haydn, which is hardly the worst imprimatur. He also composed a good deal of chamber music. We know little about the circumstances in which Ordoñez’s symphonies were written, making it hard to put them in any kind of chronological order. The three-movement form that was typical of his works in the 1770s is illustrated here by his Symphony in C major. Further on in the album, the F minor Symphony for strings is remarkable, not least, for its choice of key-signature. Only six of Ordoñez’s symphonies are in minor keys, and the four flats that are found here take us to the very limits of what was customary in the tonal context of the 18th century. The Sinfonia Concertante, which may be dated back to the 1760s, is something of a special case within Ordoñez’s oeuvre. Indeed, practically every aspect of this work is noteworthy. First, it contains no fewer than seven movements. Together with the additional heading solenne and its festive scoring for timpani and trumpets, its seven-movement form may well be indicative of the use for which the work was intended: it was presumably performed within a liturgical context. At all events, this work reveals Ordoñez to have been an exceptionally ingenious composer whose powerful grasp of musical form has no need to fear comparisons with his contemporaries. In the star-studded sky of the 18th century Ordoñez has every right to claim a permanent place for himself. © SM/Qobuz

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Karl von Ordonez: Symphonies

L'arte del mondo

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