Felix Woyrsch - Symphony No. 1 (1908)
Conducted by Miguel Gomez-Martinez with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.
I. Sehr Massig Bewegt - 00:00
II. Sehr Langsam - 10:57
III. In Ruhig Schreitender Bewegung/Schnell Und Leicht - 20:03
IV. Sehr Langsam/Sehr Bewegt - 27:26
Felix Woyrsch was a German composer and choir director.
Woyrsch lived in Dresden and Hamburg while young, studying in the latter under Ernst August Heinrich Chevallier. He held posts as a conductor and organist in several German cities in the 1890s and 1900s. In 1917 he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, and in 1936 he was given the Goethe Medal. He retired in 1937. His main influences included his friend Brahms as well as Bach, Palestrina, Lassus, and Heinrich Schütz. His compositions include seven symphonies, five further works for orchestra, three operas, 100 songs, and a violin concerto.
The First Symphony, an intensely personal work all round that shows Woyrsch's admirable sense for long symphonic breadth that is uncannily prescient of Mahler and his contemporary Rott, whose First Symphony is one of the gems of late romantic expressionism. Again, both orchestra and conductor are completely immersed in the beautiful music that permeates the symphony and their performance is certainly one of the best that one could hope for. - Classical.net
