Symphonies Nos. 1 & 6

The works of the late Romantic composer Felix Woyrsch stand as eloquent defenses of the creative successor. Perhaps it is precisely this too often disparaged generation of "late-born" artists who laid the groundwork for the great masters. By absorbing earlier achievements and reshaping them to serve their own expressive aims, they laid the foundation for later greatness. The Silesian-born Woyrsch, who established himself permanently in Altona-then still independent of Hamburg-demonstrated that even diametrically opposed models could be reconciled. He succeeded in bringing together Wagner, Bruckner, and Brahms almost imperceptibly, without sacrificing his own artistic identity. On the contrary, the cycle of six symphonies, now completed with the present release, emerges as a distinctive artistic statement-made all the more impressive by the fact that Woyrsch remained genuinely receptive to the developments of modernism.