Symphony No 5 / Overtures

Our second release featuring orchestral works by August Klughardt also 'represents an impressive case on behalf of a composer to whom one simply cannot listen without becoming personally involved' (klassik.com). Klughardt's symphonies were frequently performed during his lifetime, and his fifth such work displays a special compositional history. He composed it in 1892, the year during which he celebrated his 25th anniversary as a conductor in Dessau. In this early form, however, the work was not yet a Symphony in C minor but a String Sextet in C sharp minor, which unfortunately has not come down to us, so that we can no longer compare it to the later symphony. The frequent employment of a solo violin in almost all the movements nevertheless must surely be an inheritance from the original string sextet version. This highly animated, vital, and sonorous music and two overtures by this Dessau master are interpreted by the 'home team,' the Anhalt Philharmonic, this time under the conductor Antony Hermus.