Sinfonia in Eb

Though Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792) became the most influential Swedish musician of the 18th century, he was born and educated in Germany and lived only eight years in Stockholm before his early death at the age of 36. Yet in that brief period he had taught composers and created the Swedish school of opera. The Sinfonia in Eb was composed in Rome in December 1783, probably just prior to Kraus’s brief visit to Naples. Thus this bright and cheerful work can be considered his "Italian" symphony, written after he had come under the influence of Viennese composers such as Joseph Haydn and before his re- immersion into the dramatic world of France. The actual reasons for its composition are not known, but it was about this time that he actively sought to distribute his more popular instrumental works through the Viennese copyhouse of Johann Traeg. The existence of an alternative second movement is due solely to Kraus’s association with Traeg who did not think the original slow movement, a sombre siciliano, was appropriate for his potential buyers, and asked Kraus to replace it with another, more up to date one in the Viennese style. All of the Traeg copies contain this alternative second movement. For this edition, both have been included, leaving it to the performer’s discretion as to how Italian or how Viennese Classical one wishes to be.