Like his more famous colleague and near contemporary Joseph Haydn, Carl Ditters (who became known after ennoblement by Empress Maria Theresia in 1772 as Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf) was one of the most prolific symphonic innovators and practitioners of his times. With well over a hundred such works to his credit, and countless others in various genres, Dittersdorf enjoyed widespread fame as a composer. He was also a man of culture, erudition, verve, and wide-ranging interests; he even spent several years as a Forest Warden, and wrote extensively about matters relating to forest management and husbandry.

Dittersdorf's symphonies (or Sinfonias, as they were originally termed) provide the richest insights into his development as a composer, and like Haydn, his works in this form fall into distinctive categories which reflect evolving phases in his career. This example, in the turbulently emotive Sturm und Drang key of D minor, is thought to date from the mid to late 1770s, a period during which Dittersdorf began to consolidate and perfect a number of interesting solutions to the formal problems associated with the Classical symphonic form.

Dittersdorf's D minor Sinfonia gives impressive notice right from the start of its highly original character, and is considered by scholars to be one of the most important works of the period not to have been written by Haydn or Mozart. Possibly the most strikingly original innovation here is the movement lay-out. But the idea of starting a symphony with a sombre slow introduction was not new; Haydn's last example was his Passione symphony, No. 49, of 1768, the work which almost certainly provided the model for Dittersdorf's symphony in this darkest of keys.

Dittersdorf's opening Adagio is in the daring and terse Sturm und Drang manner, and the use of wind instruments in the scoring comes in for considerable attention. A mood of tragic seriousness is obtained at the outset, with dark-hued string textures underpinned by sonorous horn pedal points. A new, consolatory melody emerges in the violins, somewhat faster-moving, and unusually chromatic. Wind harmonies give added piquancy throughout, but the effect is felt most movingly in the final coda, music of impressive harmonic severity and gravitas.

What would have normally been the conventional symphonic sonata Allegro opening movement is placed second. It leads on from the Adagio without any appreciable break, and the immediate effect is one of suddenly entering a brilliantly illuminated room. The first subject begins al unisono with a driving theme for the strings, which soon gives way to a lighter, more fleet-footed idea for the first violins, who end the exposition group with a chirruping grace note figure. But customary thematic development is largely absent later on; instead, Dittersdorf cleverly juxtaposes the main themes in reverse order, and the unusually dramatic pregnant pause (or caesura) is a further typical Sturm und Drang gesture.

Just as unsettling are the asymmetrical phrase-lengths of the succeeding Minuet, with the arpeggiated main idea in the violins punctuated by wind chords. The second section brings further unexpected fracturing of the themes, off-beat accents, and curious harmonic twists which add further tension even though this is a dance movement. Equally surprising is that, after the trio section (only the first half is repeated) the Minuet ends in the "wrong" key!

Only in the vigorous Finale (Presto non troppo) do the storm clouds finally disperse, allowing this fascinating work to end in a mood of bracing jubilance. The entire movement is built around an insignificant-sounding descending pattern of repeated notes, but the out-working and fertility of invention could hardly be more engrossing, even though this Rondo movement is essentially monothematic.

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