Symphony op. 17 Nos 1-6

Abstract

One fact should be state right at the very outset of the present introductory text: the early classical composer Carl friedrich Abel was a master musician renowned throughout the Europe of his time. The media age in with we live offers us a variety and wealth of music-listening experiences unparalleled in the entire course of music history. Present-day concert programs, however, almost exclusively feature works by >> the big names, << usually in order to please the public, and this is one reason why other musical greats have continued to escape the notice of music lovers. There in more to the music of high classicism than the names of Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, or Gluck and Gretry. Such music is also represented, no less so, by the works of lesser-known master of the same period. The great masters of music were not isolated phenomena; their appearance was accompanied by many other sovereign talents, by composers whose works were once highly regarded but who have fallen into oblivion over the years. Hermann Kretzschmar, the founder of analytical, critical music scholarship, reminded us in his Konzertführer (ca. 1900) that the contemporaries of our great masters were not dwarfs but >>full-size fellow musicians, >> many of whom certainly would have been regarded>> as greats of the first order<< today,>> in the much poorer musical present.<< Carl Friederich Able, a generation older than Mozart, was ranking figure among the German composers of Mozart’s time, a musician o great importance in the music world of his time. Renowned critics of Abel’s time mentioned this fact. Charles Burney noted that Abel’s symphonies were held in great esteem in Italy and France.