CPO have scored again with this splendid disc of symphonies by the heretofore unsung Friedrich Ernst Fesca. This is lively, buoyant playing of music that should most certainly be heard in the concert hall. A contemporary of Beethoven and a harbinger of Brahms, Fesca was known primarily as a violinist. This excellent performance by Frank Beermann and the Berlin Radiophilharmonie proves that he was a composer of considerable merit.

The third and final volume of the Fesca Symphony series by Biermann and the NDR Radio Philharmonic, which received a great welcome! The symphonies and orchestral works of Bohemian composer Friedrich Ernst Pesca (1789-1826), who died at the early age of 37, all show the overflowing power, unique elegance, and ability to bring out the colors of the orchestra in the post-Beethoven era. In particular, Symphony No. 1, which captures the spirit of a 22-year-old young man, makes us realize that the praise he received from his contemporaries was not false. The performance of the conductor and orchestra, which introduced this hidden composer to the world, is full of affection, empathy, and confidence.

Musicology is alive and well!« Those who have followed the release history of our edition of the symphonies of Michael Haydn will necessarily have to come to this same conclusion. Whenever another one of his forty-one symphonies that was thought to be lost was found, it was immediately slated for production – and this took its time. During this period the artistic constellations, by which we mean the orchestras and conductors, underwent modification. But now we are on the homestretch: Frank Beermann and the German Chamber Academy of Neuss (continuity!) have produced a splendid recording of the nine »missing« symphonies. These works offer an overview of the entire creative career of Joseph Haydn's younger brother and once again reveal to us a highly imaginative artist who delighted in experimentation and abounded in musical humor. It is thus hardly surprising that the young Mozart repeatedly followed his lead and took him as his model.

On 29 November 1863 Giacomo Meyerbeer noted in his journal, "Worked seven hours: the last scene with Selica is instrumented and revised, and with it the score of Vasco completed. May God bless the work and grant it a dazzling and enduring success." Meyerbeer called the opera completed by him four months prior to his death Vasco de Gama, but it came to be known to posterity as L’Africaine (The African Woman). Now how did this happen? Meyerbeer had been working on the opera since 1837, and L’Africaine was its original title. Eugène Scribe’s libretto told the story of an African princess who unhappily falls in love with a Portuguese naval officer. After some initial enthusiasm Meyerbeer soon had his doubts about the subject.

Before Otto Nicolai wrote the major work for which he is known–The Merry Wives of Windsor–he wrote Italian operas, of which Il Templario, first shown in 1840 in Turin and given more than 70 productions over the next 40 years, was the third. This recording is a reconstruction of Il Templario from various versions–there were revisions in Italy, a German language edition, a French piano-vocal score–by the musicologist Michael Wittmann. The result is a full-blown, exciting Italian opera in the bel canto tradition (more like Bellini, Mercadante, and Meyerbeer than Rossini) that looks forward to the energetic, melody-filled works of the young Verdi.