Fils: The Periodical Overture in 8 Parts No. 4

Description

Born in Eichstätt, Bavaria, Anton Fils (1733–1760) joined the celebrated Mannheim orchestra in 1754 at age twenty, and by the time he was wenty-four, he had acquired a house, a wife, and a baby daughter. He had been hired as a cellist, not as a composer, and while his father was also a cellist, it is not fully clear where Fils received his training in composition. in fact, in the two years before he moved to Mannheim, Fils was enrolled at the University of Ingolstadt as a law and theology student. However, Fils was later described by a French publisher as being a "disciple" of Johann Stamitz (1717–1757), the pioneering leader of the Mannheim school of composition who had died before his fortieth birthday.

Regrettably, Fils outdid his teacher by dying at age twenty-six—but not before composing an outstanding portfolio of music in numerous genres, including some forty-seven symphonies. Despite the brevity of his career—a mere six years in all—his output was widely admired, and six years after his passing, a journalist for a Hamburg newspaper still paid tribute to the late composer by saying, "It would have been wished that [Anton] Fils would have had a longer life. This young composer is full of spirit and fire in his symphonies, and his slow movements are full of charm and harmony."