Vienna’s music scene at the end of the 18th century was home to many renowned composers, including Paul Wranitzky, who was a respected colleague of Mozart and Haydn and was frequently tasked with providing incidental music for the considerable number of newly written plays. The three pieces heard on this album demonstrate not only Wranitzky’s compositional diversity but a gift for symphonically conceived works featuring battle music, solemn polyphonic elements, and the popular Turkish style with its characteristic janissary percussion.

Josef Bohuslav Foerster was the successor to Dvorák as organist in Prague, a lifelong friend of Mahler, and a pivotal figure in Czech music, whose almost 200 compositions take in all the major genres. The three selected works here offer an overview of his orchestral music. Recalling several equally majestic pieces by Smetana, the arresting Festive Overture combines Czech flair with Viennese elegance, while From Shakespeare explores characterization with warmth and resourceful orchestration. The early Symphony No.1 in D minor offers a darkness-to-light trajectory suffused with rich mid-Romantic colors.

Paul Wranitzky moved to Vienna from his native Moravia at the age of 20, mixing with the likes of Haydn and Mozart. As the most important symphonist in Vienna in the late 1790s, his style influenced the early symphonies of Beethoven. The Symphony in D major ‘La Chasse’ reflects the popularity of hunting music, and is heard here for the first time in its expanded version. The overtures to Mitgefühl and Die gute Mutter represent Wranitzky’s skill as a composer for the theatre, as does the masterfully scored Symphony in C major in which the composer repurposes some incidental and ballet music.

"Czech-born Paul Wranitzky, a contemporary of Mozart, was the most important symphonist in Vienna at the turn of the 18th century. To mark the ascension to the throne of Franz II in 1792, Wranitzky wrote the grand Symphony in C major, a work of regal quality and festive exuberance. Wranitzky's mature symphonic style is on display in the Symphony in B flat major, with its expanded orchestral forces, contrasting textures and broad musical invention. Overtures from two operas offer a sampling of Wranitzky's dramatic writing for the stage."