Joseph Martin Kraus, also named as the "Swedish Mozart", has been many years a shadowy existence in music history. Gluck and even Joseph Haydn saw "a real genius" in his virtuosic and nearly early-romantic works. His position as composer at the Swedish court under Gustav III made it possible to have a fixed income and a blithe creativity. This new release gives us an overall musical impression of his compositions in all genres: Beginning with the incidental music to Amphitryon, the high virtuosic Italian Cantatas, his Symphonies from different life periods, till the early String Quartets- it is clear that Gluck and Haydn were not mistaken in their assessment of his skill and prowess.

This disc received the 1999 Cannes Classical Award for "Best Orchestral Recording - 18th Century."

Any composer dubbed by Haydn as "one of the greatest geniuses I have met" deserves serious attention. One such was German-born Joseph Martin Kraus. Born the same year as Mozart (1756), Kraus survived him by a year, dying of tuberculosis at age 36. Remarkably, despite having lived in Sweden for less than eight years, he was befriended by King Gustavus III and became the country's greatest 18th century composer. That reputation is gaining wider endorsement today through a pioneering Kraus series on Naxos, of which this is the latest installment. The performers, as before, are the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Petter Sundkvist, who continue to give exemplary readings of these remarkable if obscure late Classical symphonies.


Though the C-sharp minor and E minor works that open and close this program fully reflect the tastes and semantics of their era, the Symphony in C minor, subtitled "Symphonie funèbre", is an astonishing discovery. Written in April, 1792, following the assassination of Gustav III (the event inspired operas by Verdi and Auber and its political repercussions were felt throughout Europe), this is one of the most extraordinary musical valedictions to pre-date Beethoven's Eroica. All four movements are somber and slow-moving, and the use of timpani, solemn brass, and muted strings seem uncomfortably alien to a work of the period. This is an exceptionally fine account; Sundkvist's orchestra plays magnificently under his watchful direction, and the solo cello and horn in the chorale section of the finale sound suitably eloquent.


This disc also includes Kraus’ Overture in D minor (according to Haydn's friend Fredrik Silverstolpe, Swedish ambassador to Vienna, it was performed by mixed wind band at Good Friday services in Stockholm for many years) in its original instrumentation, the outcome of detailed reconstruction of Kraus' original manuscripts. Another surprise is the C # minor 'Sinfonia da camera'; the second section of its minuet is simply the first part played backwards (a trick Haydn himself tried on occasion)! As with previous releases, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Sundkvist, offer spirited and polished orchestral playing and a bright-well-balanced recording. Highly recommended.
--Michael Jameson, ClassicsToday.com

KRAUS: Symphonies, Vol. 2

KRAUS: Symphonies, Vol. 4

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Joseph Martin Kraus. Ensemble: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Uwe Grodd.

Includes work(s) by Joseph Martin Kraus. Soloists: Walter Schwede, Jacques Després, John Friesen.

Includes work(s) by Joseph Martin Kraus.

Joseph Martin Kraus, regarded in his lifetime (1756–1792) as one of the world’s six most formidable composers, has like many other contemporaries since languished in the historical shadow of Mozart. Kraus was hailed by none other than Joseph Haydn as Mozart’s equal in terms of creativity and genius but had a career more like Haydn’s and was more of a polymath. Born in central Germany, he studied composition in Mannheim, Mainz, Erfurt and Göttingen. In 1778 he decided on a career in music and emigrated to Sweden, where he became Vice-Kapellmeister at the court of Gustav III in 1781 and Kapellmeister in Stockholm in 1788. Trained as a violinist (who, like Mozart, preferred the viola), he nonetheless was a talented pianist. Francisco de Miranda, a nobleman on a grand tour in 1787, described Kraus playing the fortepiano ‘like an angel’. Sadly, the composer left relatively few works for the keyboard. This disc provides a thorough exploration of these works, from the satirical to the sublime, the expansive to the perfunctory, with the real tours de force being the two fortepiano sonatas, both issued in 1788 by Swedish publisher Olof Ålström. Though limited in number, these works for solo keyboard (almost certainly composed for the fortepiano) represent the variety and originality that are among Kraus’s musical trademarks. The two sonatas in particular challenge the technical limits of the instrument, requiring both dexterity and interpretive ability and often foreshadowing the piano music of thirty years hence in content and scope.