When Franz Beck composed his first symphonies, some time around the mid–1750s, the genre was in its infancy but it was by no means primitive. The most famous exponent of the symphony, The most famous exponent of the symphony, Johann Stamitz, director of the famous Mannheim court orchestra and, coincidentally, Beck’s teacher, had not only raised it to new levels of technical sophistication but, together with a number of his gifted colleagues, had also evolved a new and distinctive style of writing for orchestra. Stamitz’s symphonies were immensely popular, particularly in France. They circulated in both printed editions and in manuscript parts, exerting a profound if localised influence on the development of the symphony. The presence of Stamitz, Richter, Holzbauer, Filtz and others at the Mannheim court created a unique musical environment that must have been intoxicating to a young and ambitious comp