Fils (Filtz), Anton

Anton Fils (Filtz) – The Periodical Overture in 8 parts No.8 (Edited by Barnaby Priest and Alyson McLamore / new print) Published by Robert Bremner at the Harp and Hautboy, opposite Somerset-House, in the Strand Issued: 4 February 1764; price 2 shillings Source: Henry Watson Music Library – Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council: BR580Fk757 Editors: Barnaby Priest & Alyson McLamore COMMENTARY In the course of publishing the first six symphonies that launched the Periodical Overtures, Robert Bremner (c.1713–1789) sometimes jettisoned a minuet movement from a continental source in order to conform to a standard three-movement model. However, Bremner deviated from that pattern in “Opus II,” the second group of six works. The Periodical Overture in 8 Parts No. 8 is a four-movement composition, as had also been true for the seventh symphony issued a month earlier. In addition to this new trend, Bremner also “repeated” a composer, Anton Fils (1733–1760), who had been previously featured as the author of Periodical Overture No. 4. Posterity now regards Fils as one of the innovators of the expanded four-movement symphonic structure, which he used in approximately sixty percent of his symphonies, and he also was one of the first to employ a contrasting theme in the slow movements—another trait that is present in Periodical Overture No. 8. It is likely that his earlier work in Bremner’s series had been well received, since Britain was rapidly developing an avid taste for the flashy orchestral effects introduced by the Mannheim school of composers. The Bavarian-born Fils had joined the celebrated Mannheim orchestra as a cellist in 1754 at the age of twenty, but died only six years later, leaving behind a widow and a young daughter. Historians assume that he learned the cello from his father, a court instrumentalist in Eichstätt, but Fils spent two years at the University of Ingolstadt studying jurisprudence and theology before being hired at Mannheim, so the source of Fils’s compositional training is unclear. However, the Mannheim orchestra leader, Johann Stamitz (1717–1757) was a noted teacher as well as ensemble leader, and so it is likely that a French publisher of the 1760s was correct when it advertised Fils as being a “disciple” of Stamitz. read more / weiterlesen … > HERE ——————- > Historical Background & Catalogue