Remarkable unsung late classical symphonies

[LateRomantic75]

I understand that music of the late classical period is not off-limits here; if I am mistaken, please feel free to lock this thread!

I am not that well familiar with lesser-known music of the classical era, but I have come across some remarkable, forward-looking unsung symphonies of the late classical era, including:

Antonio Cartellieri: Four symphonies (recorded by CPO). These works have everything one could ask for in a classical symphony: memorable melodies, sturm und drang, and vivacious energy.

Etienne Mehul: Four symphonies (recorded by Nimbus). Riveting, Beethovenian works which deserve to be much better known. Great orchestration, too!

Ferdinand Ries: Eight symphonies (recorded by CPO). As Ries was a student of Beethoven, the elder composer's influence is undeniable, but Ries adds his own touch with his brand of mellifluous lyricism.

Jan Vaclav Vorisek: Symphony in D (recorded by Hyperion). A vigorous work in approximation to late Mozart and early/mid-period Beethoven.

Juan Crisostomo Arriaga: Symphony in D (recorded by Hyperion). A beautiful, vivacious work which assimilates the influences of Mozart, Schubert, and Italian opera into a compellingly individual mix.

Anton Eberl: Symphony in E-flat, op. 33 (recorded by Teldec). An interesting precursor to Beethoven's Eroica, and not just because of the key.

Joseph Martin Kraus: Symphonie Funebre in C minor and some of his other later symphonies. Very imaginative music, with unexpected harmonic modulations and forward-looking orchestration. Kraus is often dubbed "The Swedish Mozart", but his music doesn't sound much like Mozart at all!

[Dave]

Niels Wilhelm Gade's 1st Symphony in C minor "Paa Sjølunds fagre Sletter" ("On Sjoland's Fair Plains") of 1842. Very much Beethovian and Mendelssohnian and perhaps more classical than Berward's First (1842).

[LateRomantic75]

I've never thought of Gade's First as late classical, but it very well could be! It's a stirring work, perhaps even the equal of Mendelssohn.

[LateRomantic75]

I'll add two large-scale, Beethovenian symphonies to the mix: Otto Nicolai's Second and Carl Czerny's Second (both in D major). Perhaps verging on early romantic, but both works have a sense of argument and architecture characteristic of the classical era.

[Mark Thomas]

Although all such categorisations are artificial, I certainly wouldn't describe Gade's rather magnificent First Symphony as "late classical". It's surely an early example of the romantic tradition established by Mendelssohn.

[alberto]

I would list in the late classical category the very masterful only Symphony by Luigi Cherubini.
It is fairly often recorded, but it appears underperformed in the concert halls. In decades of attending concerts, I heard it live just twice.

[Alan Howe]

With well over twenty symphonies now mentioned, perhaps friends could choose one or two at most and tell us why they think they are remarkable.

There are some issues with the definition 'late-classical'. To my mind only symphonists such as Eberl, Kraus, Cartellieri and possibly Cherubini truly fit. As soon as the influences of Beethoven and Schubert make themselves felt, we are into a transitional style that moves on from late classicism to early romanticism - into this category come Méhul, Arriaga, Vorisek, Czerny and Ries. Nicolai's Symphony is a late example of this transitional style too. However, Gade 1 is fully romantic - Mendelssohn with a Nordic accent, as it were - so he doesn't fit here.

[Hilleries]

I wouldn't put Méhul in the "influenced by Beethoven" category, his first two symphonies (they are the only ones I have) come from the same year as Beethoven's 5th, but I don't think B's first four were too much a big deal to have inflluenced Méhul by that time, they only truly entered Paris' life with Habeneck much later (iirc). Méhul would be in the "influenced by Haydn"-team. I think they are wonderful and remarkable symphonies. Minkowski's recording of them is truly wonderful, imo.

May I also add Wilms and Schneider into the mix? I only heard one symphony from Schneider, the one recorded by CPO, and wish the others were also made public.

[eschiss1]

Hrm. Johann Christian Friedrich Schneider, 1786-1853 - (may have premiered the Beethoven Emperor concerto in 1811 (or given it its Leipzig premiere, I'm not quite sure what's meant)) . A piano quartet (pub.ca.1815), string quartet (pub.1832) and oratorio but not yet any of his 17+ symphonies uploaded to IMSLP, I see...

(RISM mentions autograph material for Schneider symphonies - 27 sources worth - at Anhaltische Landesbücherei, Abteilung Sondersammlungen, Dessau; and 2 sources each at each of 2 other libraries.)

The autograph of no.17 is dated 1822, by the way (see RISM, again.) (1821 at the top, [18]22 on the individual movements. Other symphonies of his listed @ RISM are dated rather earlier (1805, e.g.) (I like that one is in B minor- never a ''popular'' key for symphonies, maybe because of that lack of open strings...))

[Hilleries]

may have premiered the Beethoven Emperor concerto in 1811 (or given it its Leipzig premiere, I'm not quite sure what's meant)

From what I read, the latter. It seems he was responsible for introducing Beethoven's piano concertos to (north?) Germany.

[chill319]

Among unsung works of the late classical period, I have a fondness for Schubert's Symphony in E, D 729. An unsung work if ever there was one, yes? I haven't investigated myself, so I wonder if members can confirm (or deny) my impression that the musical content of this work is fully worked out in piano score, just not orchestrated in full score (perhaps due to a paucity of immediate performance prospects). There are passages in the last movement of this work that remind me of Berwald 20-odd years later.

[eschiss1]

There's a book "The Characteristic Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Beethoven" (Richard Will, Cambridge University Press, 2002*) (which distinguishes it from the Program-Symphony of later generations and has some things to say about works by Kraus and Paul Wranitzky among others.) I'm fascinated by unsung works and composers that were well-known and admired in their time and have only since been mostly forgotten (not only those composers and works, of course, but I am) and this book (which I've only skimmed, not read) seems very interesting especially as relates to this thread, I think. Also + Toeschi, Winter, others mentioned. Anyone have a copy?

*Perhaps based on his thesis, Programmatic symphonies of the classical period, 1994 for Cornell University. Now -that- one I might just jump on a bus and check assuming they let one do that (I don't see why not; it's mostly an open-stack library) (as I may have mentioned, I live in town...)

[John H White]

I think the symphonies of Friedrich Fesca could come into this category and would certainly include Spohr's 1st symphony, in which the influence of Mozart and Haydn is very much to the fore.

[Alan Howe]

Ahem, gentlemen: in what way might the works mentioned so far be regarded as 'remarkable'? (Their mere existence doesn't count!!)

[Gauk]

It does seem to me that the greatest blank spot in general musical knowledge of the average listener today is the concert environment in Beethoven's heyday. If you asked most people which composers Beethoven would have regarded as his contemporaries, you would pretty much draw a blank, which you would not if you asked the same question about Brahms or Grieg. As I think I said in another thread ...