Following Stamitz’s first efforts there appeared in print a veritable flood of similar works, known in France as _Simphonies d’Allemagne_, most of them by direct pupils of Stamitz, by F. X. Richter, his associate in Mannheim, by Wagenseil, Toeschi, Holtzbauer, Filtz, and Cannabich, his successor at the Mannheim _Pult_. Stamitz’s own work comprises ten orchestral trios, fifty symphonies, violin concertos, violin solo and violin-piano sonatas, a fair amount for so short a career. That for a long time this highly interesting figure disappeared from the annals of musical history is only less remarkable than the eclipse of Bach’s fame for seventy-five years after his death, though in Stamitz’s case it was hardly because of slow recognition, for already Burney had characterized him as a great genius. Arteaga in 1785 called him ‘the Rubens among composers’ and Gerbert (1792) said that ‘his divine talent placed him far above his contemporaries.’ V From these contemporaries we shall select only a few as essential links in the chain of development. Three men stand out as intermediaries between Stamitz and the Haydn-Mozart epoch: Johann Schobert, chiefly in the field of piano music; Luigi Boccherini, especially for stringed chamber-music; and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, for the symphony. These signalize the ‘cosmopolization’ of the new art; representing, as it were, its French, Italian, and South German outposts. Schobert is especially important because of the influence which he and his colleague Eckard exercised upon Mozart at a very early age.[32] These two men were the two favorite pianists of Paris _salons_ about the middle of the century. Chamber music with piano obbligato found in Schobert one of its first exponents. A composer of agreeable originality, solid in musicianship, and an unequivocal follower of the Mannheim school, he must be reckoned as a valiant supporter of the German sonata as opposed to its lighter Italian sister, though French characteristics are not by any means lacking in his work.