He was probably the first composer of eminence who made free use of harmonic color for its own sake. In this way, he compares well with the most important representatives of the First Viennese School. In fact, he exerted enormous influence on the North German School of composers, in particular Georg Anton Benda, Bernhard Joachim Hagen, Ernst Wilhelm Wolf, Johann Gottfried Müthel, and Friedrich Wilhelm Rust. His influence was not limited to his contemporaries and extended to Felix Mendelssohn and Carl Maria von Weber.