Johannes Sperger
Johannes Sperger (his birth register does not list the second name Matthias, which he often used) was born on 23 March 1750 in Feldsberg, today Valtice in the Czech Republic, then part of Lower Austria. His father was the town shepherd. By 1767 at the latest, Sperger had gone to Vienna to study music, taking theory lessons with Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and double bass lessons with Friedrich Pichelberger. Around 1776 he married Anna Tarony, a native of Linz on the Danube. His first symphonies (A 1 to A 6) date from this period.
It is still unknown which orchestra Sperger played in before he joined the court orchestra of Prince Joseph von Batthyány, Prince-Bishop and later Cardinal of Hungary, in Pressburg (Bratislava) in 1777. During his Pressburg years from 1777 to 1783 he was exceptionally productive, writing symphonies, solo concertos, outdoor Feldpartien (wind partitas) and chamber music. From 1778 he was also a member of the Vienna Society of Musicians (Wiener Tonkünstlersozietät), where he repeatedly appeared in its concerts as a soloist and with his own works (symphonies and concertos).
As a result of Emperor Joseph II's reforms, Prince Batthyány had to disband his court orchestra in 1783. From 1783 to 1786 Sperger was a member of the court orchestra of Count Ludwig von Erdödy in Kohfidisch (today in southern Burgenland, Austria). In 1789 he was appointed to the court orchestra of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, where he died in 1812.
More about Sperger at french-horn.net
Concerto in E-flat major for Horn and Orchestra (SWV B26)
The concerto survives in manuscript in the music collection of the State Library of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Schwerin. It is written in the early style of the Viennese Classical period – certainly unusual for the place where it is kept.
Orchestral parts: strings 5/5/4/5
Audio sample: 1st movement, Allegro