JOSEF NETZER (1808-1864): Symphony No. 1 in C, Symphony No. 4 in E Flat.

Description: As we said when offering the first volume of Netzer's string quartets 11 months ago (03N006), his main influence in his first quartet was Schubert and this is also the case in the First Symphony, composed a year later in 1837, where the relaxed lyricism of the adagio and the lightly-sprung rhythms of the first movement and the scherzo are very Schubertian; in the finale, however, Netzer's model was plainly the final movement of Mozart's Jupiter symphony. Although the Schubertian influence is still present in the longer, 44-minute Fourth of 1849, it's the sort of Schubert which you find in early Bruckner, especially in the scherzo which sounds like "Bruckner does the Eroica". Since the number of composers in Netzer's generation who wrote symphonies (which have been recorded) is rather small, no symphony collector is likely to pass this up and, needless to say, we'll have the other volume containing Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 in the not-too-distant future. Cappella Istropolitana; Edgar Seipenbusch. Cappella Istropolitana; Edgar Seipenbusch.