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Yes - according to my Chambers Dictionary the expression involves the plural. However, poetic licence and all that...

The 's', unfortunately and dagnabit, is necessary, Jim. Otherwise it doesn't make sense. However, I agree in a way: I need a last line which ends 'rapture' (sing).

True unsung, Johann Rufinatscha,
Wrote music which words barely capture,
His 6th Symphony -
The great one in D -
Would send a Proms crowd into raptures!

I am old, John and Mark. I admit it....

I thoroughly recommend his two symphonies on Dacapo: No.2 is a masterpiece. There is also a very good CD of overtures on the same label.

I grew up with Bruckner, so don't find him difficult at all. But you have to give him time...

Only Ries' last symphony (No.7) dates from after 1827. (No.'8' was actually written much earlier).
Gade - yes, he was really part of the Leipzig scene, wasn't he?
Has anything else been recorded from this period - or have we covered everything?

Yes, Czerny - thanks, I'd forgotten him!

I meant in any sense, Mark - whether viewed as important at the time or in the light of the subsequent development of music.

Franck's symphonies, I think, come later than 1850.

I agree that we have Wagner, Nicolai, Kalliwoda (although he was born in Prague), Burgmüller and Staehle - and Rietz and Hirschbach certainly fit too. Ferdinand Hiller would be another possibility, I assume. And then there is Moscheles and Ries (whose final symphony dates from 1835).

Otherwise we have Rufinatscha and Netzer...

If we omit Spohr, Lachner, Mendelssohn and Schumann, which are the most important symphonists in Germany/Austria in the period 1827 to 1850?

Netzer is nothing like Bruckner; his model is surely Beethoven. If you like the early Rufinatscha, you'll certainly like Netzer.

As far as the symphonic context is concerned, I should have added Moscheles in C (1829), Ries 7 (1835) and Burgmüller 1 & 2 (he died in 1836).

Here's a link...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Rufinatscha

Actually I felt like conducting, but I remembered where I was just in time!

I too had Netzer in the car yesterday - his 4th. I'm probably an uncritical sucker for this sort of music: lively, memorable (the first movement is still going round in my head this morning) and just plain attractive.

Just a thought: Netzer's 1st dates from 1837 - that's only a decade after Beethoven's death. Of Mendelssohn's mature symphonies, only 1 and 4 predate it, and all of Schumann's and Berwald's were written after 1837. Seen this way, the correct context in which to view the emergence of Netzer as a symphonist is that of Spohr and Lachner. Does this make sense?