Sinfonia in E minor

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 E minor (VB 141) is one of three works in this genre where the question of authorship has, until recently, been somewhat ambiguous. An attribution to Cambini in a set of parts published in Paris by Boyer does not stand up to closer examination when the work is compared with Cambini’s authentic symphonies. Circumstantial evidence – and a set of parts – suggests that Kraus may have completed the work in Regensburg in March 1783. Of particular interest is the addition of a flute in the final movement only, an unusual occurrence but one which is possibly explained by the unusual genesis of the work.