Die Kolner Academie:Willens - Neukomm: Three Orchestral Fantasies

During the first half of the nineteenth century Sigismund von Neukomm was one of Europe's most highly regarded composers. Although he maintained an intimate artistic friendship with Joseph Haydn until the older composer's death, he was a composer with a mind of his own and full of originality. This fact is very convincingly demonstrated by his four orchestral fantasies presented here which he termed an 'Essay in a New Genre'. Here we encounter Sturm und Drang and anticipations of romanticism in their purest form.