A Symphony coincidence.

Yesterday, for the second time in 2006 KVOD played a symphony "Il Comista" in C by the composer Johann Vanhal. Frankly I had never heard of him. WikiPedia has a brief article about him. He wrote 73 symphonies and some were compared favorably with Haydn. What brought Herr Vanhal to mind is that he is one of the four composers touched on by Robert Greenberg in his Symphonies lectures as one of the "Classical Masters". I just listened to this lecture today, hence the coincidence.

Vanhal isn't played much on any of stations, with only 110 discrete broadcasts since about October of 2003. He seems to be a favorite of CL24, the Minneapolis PBS station, though. However, they seem to feel that only certain movements of his "Symphony" are worth playing. I noticed that they give no number to his symphony, but with 73 under his belt it might make a difference. So here is a minor composer, considered a "Classical Master" by a major musical lecturer, who only gets fragments of his works broadcast. CL24's tastes tend toward the really short, so let's only listen to certain movements of a piece of art, rather than the whole thing. It's like the Louvre covering all but the smile on the Mona Lisa -- why would you want to look at the rest anyway?

Quality must be quick, again.