Though he wrote a great deal of church music, and also composed for the theatre, Justin Heinrich Knecht is best remembered for his Grande Simphonie ‘Le Portrait musical de la Nature’. Elegantly scored and completed in 1785, this eventful five-movement symphonic work of nature-depiction predates Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony by almost a quarter of a century. Knecht’s older French contemporary Philidor was the leading chess player of his time in addition to being a popular stage composer, whose overtures reveal the influence of the Italian school in their sparkling drama.