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Donald Macleod delves into the final tragic years for King Gustav III and his kapellmeister, Joseph Kraus.

In a first for Composer of the Week, Donald Macleod surveys the life and music of Joseph Martin Kraus. Kraus has been called the Swedish Mozart; he was born in the same year as Mozart, in 1756, and survived him by just 12 months. Originally from Germany, Kraus found work as a composer based at the Swedish royal court and quickly came to be regarded as one of the leading music directors in all Europe. Haydn said that he knew of only two geniuses, Mozart and Joseph Martin Kraus.

By the 1790s, Kraus’s works for the stage were immensely celebrated and his legacy as one of the great composers of the age seemed assured. However, all of this was to come crashing down in a series of horrible episodes. First came the assassination of his patron, King Gustav III of Sweden. The king had been a loyal supporter of Kraus and to mark the passing of his employer Kraus composed a Funeral Cantata and a Funeral Symphony. The Prince Regent who took up the reins of power was also a fan of Kraus, but very soon tragedy would strike once more. A year after the death of the King, Kraus himself fell sick and died at the tragically young age of 36. Another blow came some thirty or so years later, when a fire at the Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm destroyed the manuscripts of many of his celebrated works for the stage. The Swedish Mozart was quickly forgotten.

Cantata La Gelosia, VB46 (excerpt)
Simone Kermes
L’Arte del Mondo
Werner Erhardt

Symphony in C minor, VB 148 (Symphonie funèbre)
Swedish Chamber Orchestra
Petter Sundkvist, conductor

Funeral Cantata (Part Two)
Hillevi Martinpelto, soprano
Christina Högman, mezzo-soprano
Claes-Håkan Ahnsjö, tenor
Thomas Lander, baritone
Uppsala University Chamber Choir
The Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble
Stefan Parkman, conductor

String Quartet in E major, VB 180 (Allegretto)
Salagon Quartet

Produced by Luke Whitlock, for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales