Anton Eberl

Anton Franz Josef Eberl[1] (13 June 1765 – 11 March 1807)[2] was an Austrian composer, teacher and pianist of the Classical period.

The family eventually fell into financial difficulties, so Eberl was unable to continue courses and training as a lawyer.

Eberl married Maria Anna Sheffler in the spring of 1796 after returning from his tour with Constanze Mozart and Aloysia Lange.

About two-fifths of the Vienna subscribers were from the nobility, mostly music lovers, amateur performers, and patrons of the arts, including many writers and poets.

He tried his hand composing two stage works, "Erwine von Steinheim" and "Konigen der schwarzen Inseln".

A lengthy obituary that appeared on the front page of the Wiener Zeitung on 18 March 1807 stated: "What he was as an artist, what richness, depth and abundance characterized his compositions – all that has been determined by the critics.

But how excellent his heart, how clear his mind, how unpretentiously cultured his works were – all that can only be known by those who knew him well and who loved the person in him as they respected the artist."

Another publication, the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of 1 April 1807 said the following: "Though not tall, Eberl was a well-built, handsome man ... he was exceptionally good-natured and sincere and of noble morality; his manners were polished, but not affected.

Eberl's "was extraordinarily pleasing, and really it has so much that is beautiful and powerful, handled with such genius and art, that its effect could hardly be lacking in any performance in which it were well rehearsed.

For example, the coda of the finale of Eberl's E-flat symphony performed at the same concert in between Beethoven's First and newly composed Third ("Eroica," in the same key of E-flat; see below) that drew high praise from a reviewer who (reflecting typical contemporary conservative criticism) thought much less of the "Eroica" (for its radical length and otherwise advanced style) ends with a descending bugle-call theme in dotted rhythm in E-flat that is more or less identical to the closing theme of the first movement of Beethoven's monumental Ninth (stated in B-flat at the end of the exposition leading into the development, and in D minor at the end of the recapitulation leading into the coda).

Two of his piano concertos, op 32 & 40, were recorded in 2011 for CPO by Die Kölner Akademie under Michael Alexander Willens with Paolo Giacometti and Riko Fukuda as soloists.