Sinfonia in F

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. Kraus had a lifelong fascination with drama and unsurprisingly his symphonies are full of unexpected twists and turns and contain many forward-looking stylistic devices that anticipate music of the next century. Although the work is not dated, it is almost certain that the Sinfonia in F represents one of the several works in this genre that were written during 1775-1776, the year that Kraus was forced to stay at home in Buchen while awaiting the outcome of his father’s indictment for misuse of office. The scoring of two horns and strings is consistent with the plethora of church works written for the Buchen Musik-Chor during this time and the style represents an advance on two earlier works, the Sinfonias in A and F “Buffa.”