Friedrich Witt - Symphony in C-major "Jena"

Picture: Joseph Mallord William Turner - Rome, from the Vatican. Raffaelle, Accompanied by La Fornarina, Preparing his Pictures for the Decoration of the Loggia 1820

Friedrich Jeremias Witt (November 8, 1770 -- January 3, 1836) was a German composer and cellist.

Work: Symphony in C-major "Jena" scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in C, 2 trumpets in C, timpani and strings.

Mov.I: Adagio - Allegro vivace 00:00
Mov.II: Adagio cantabile 08:17
Mov.III: Menuetto 16:05
Mov.IV: Finale: Allegro 19:37

Orchestra: Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä

Conductor: Patrick Gallois

The so-called "Jena Symphony" is a symphony that was at one time attributed to Ludwig van Beethoven. The symphony was discovered by Fritz Stein in 1909 in the archives of a concert society in Jena, from which it derived its name. Stein believed it to be the work of Beethoven and it was so published by Breitkopf und Härtel in 1911. It is now known that the piece was the work of Friedrich Witt.

Stein thought it was quite likely an early work by Beethoven and pointed out some stylistic similarities in the preface to the score. From each of the four movements he singled out a few passages he considered specially Beethoven-like. Stein's belief in Beethoven's authorship was strengthened by the fact that Beethoven's letters show that prior to writing his own Symphony No. 1 he tried to write a C major symphony with Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 97 as a model, and it is easy to find parallels between the Jena Symphony and Haydn's No. 97.

When H. C. Robbins Landon found another copy of the work at the archives of Göttweig Abbey with Witt's name on it, he convinced most other scholars that the work was in fact by Witt. Ralph Leavis, for example, condemned the work as "a piece of plagiarism, put together almost with scissors and paste from reminiscences of Haydn."