Woyrsch: Symphony No. 2, Hamlet Overture

Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester;
Dorsch, Thomas

CPO 777744

Felix Woyrsch was a genuine autodidact in composition and had an opinion of his own on this topic: »I did not have any bad teachers. Fine-sounding names: I studied counterpoint with Palestrina, Lassus, Sweelinck, Schütz, and Haßler and often sat at the feet of the great Sebastian; Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn taught me composition, and I owe a lot to the masters of more recent times, Brahms and Wagner.« As we can gather from this ancestral portrait gallery, the city music director of the then independent city of Altona did not aspire to be an innovator and a revolutionary. He belonged to a generational group of composers including Richard Wetz, Wilhelm Berger, Felix Weingartner, and Paul Juon, whose members carefully continued to develop the classical-romantic tradition in their own personal manner and style and enriched the history of genres such as the symphony with important nuances. Together with the Oldenburg State Orchestra, known for its enlistment in the cause of Albert Dietrich, we would now like to see justice done to Felix Woyrsch, the Northern German successor to Brahms.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

CPO

23-05-2012

761203774425

American Record Guide: 'Critic’s Choice' (2013)