Symphonies Opus 4 Numéro 4 et 6 / Extraits de Pandore

Description

Franz Ignaz Beck was an "Mannheim school" composer from the very beginning. The son of the court oboist Franz Aloys Beck, he was trained by other court musicians after the premature death of his father, before studying in Venice with Baldassare Galuppi and eventually making his way to France via Naples. He was twenty-three years old when three of his symphonies were acclaimed in Paris; however, he was soon drawn to Marseille and then Bordeaux, where, until 1798 (for more than thirty-five years), he served as Master of Music, overseeing operas and concerts as well as the performance of his own works and those of others. The six symphonies Op. 4 date from his early years on the Garonne and are now presented in their entirety. They represent Beck's last contributions to the genre in which he conducted bold yet successful experiments — stormy and urgent, filled with striking turns that electrified audiences and explain why he was sometimes hailed as the "Berlioz of the 18th century." The music of the melodrama Pandora, composed about twenty years later, provides an illuminating counterpoint.