Anton Eberl - Symphony in E-flat major, Op.33

Image von der Wik

On this day in 1805, Beethoven's great Third Symphony debuted at a concert in Vienna.  It was one of several compositions by several composers, and the definite consensus is that his symphony didn't win first prize.  This one did, and it shows how fleeting fame can be.

Anton Ebert was one of the most renown composers at the turn of the 19th century.  Friends with both Mozart and Beethoven, his music has distinct flavors of both.  Actually, it's quite a trick to bring out hints of both in the very same piece of music, but that's exactly what Ebert did here.  The Vienna crowd loved it, and I quite like it myself.  Ebert caught scarlet fever and died young and so we lost all of the music he might have composed - but at the time he was more famous than Beethoven.  And then he was forgotten for 200 years.

He seems to be making something of a comeback in the last years.  Good.  After all, his music was confused with Mozart's and he was better than Beethoven, at least for a while.