Rossini Symphonies

The highlight of this sunny, consistently delightful disc comes in the form of 26 Variations on "La folia di Spagna", based on one of the most famous tunes in Western civilization. A veritable "concerto for orchestra", this late (1815) masterpiece offers a compendium of orchestral tricks of the trade, with brilliant sectional writing, echo effects, and solos for everyone, including (alongside more traditional strings and winds) trombones, harp, and even snare drum. Why it's not an orchestral staple even today simply defies the imagination, and aside from a less-than-seductive principal violin solo, it's brilliantly played here.

Described as having ‘natural genius’, John Abraham Fisher (1744–1806) was a significant figure in London during the second half of the 18th century. A virtuoso violinist, he also wrote admired stage works for the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. His orchestral works are largely forgotten today, but his symphonies display a surprising awareness of contemporary continental trends in their use of dynamic variations, revealing the influence of the Mannheim School. Possessing a richness of colour, contrast and surprise, these symphonies typify Fisher’s expanding Classical style.

Pleyel once was the human symbol of everything balanced and moderate in symphonic music. Even on Cape Cod (Nantucket, to be exact), a Pleyel Society was founded "to purify the taste of the public." Today, his name is recognized for the Parisian concert hall to which it is attached (the Salle Pleyel), and for the pianos that he (and later, his son) had manufactured under the family name, beginning in 1807. Another nugget worth retaining is Pleyel's invention of the miniature score – an innovation associated with the publishing house he founded in the mid-1790s. How did Pleyel have the time for all of this "extracurricular" activity? He did it in the style of Rossini or Sibelius, by giving up composing for about the last thirty years of his life.

Pleyel once was the human symbol of everything balanced and moderate in symphonic music. Even on Cape Cod (Nantucket, to be exact), a Pleyel Society was founded "to purify the taste of the public." Today, his name is recognized for the Parisian concert hall to which it is attached (the Salle Pleyel), and for the pianos that he (and later, his son) had manufactured under the family name, beginning in 1807. Another nugget worth retaining is Pleyel's invention of the miniature score – an innovation associated with the publishing house he founded in the mid-1790s. How did Pleyel have the time for all of this "extracurricular" activity? He did it in the style of Rossini or Sibelius, by giving up composing for about the last thirty years of his life.