Ordonez: Symphonies

Born into the ranks of the minor nobility and as such forbidden a career as a professional musician, Karl von Ordonez nonetheless played a significant role in the musical life of his native Vienna. If he was denied the life of an artist he shared the fate of many in death, ending his days in desperate poverty, his estate too small even to cover the cost of his funeral. Possessed of a lively musical imagination, Ordonez is one of the most interesting if unknown contemporaries of Haydn. His symphonies, of which he composed over seventy, contain much that is beautiful and, in their modest way, highly original. The slow movement of the Sinfonia in C makes striking use of violin and cello obbligati, while the two minor key symphonies suggest a composer sensitive to the tonal nuances of different keys.