Herzogenberg: Columbus (2CD)

Columbus: Dramatic Cantata for Soloists, Male Choir, Mixed Choir, and Full Orchestra, Op. 11, which celebrated its premiere at the Graz Music Society Concert Hall on 4 December 1870, is an extraordinary work within Heinrich von Herzogenberg's oeuvre as a whole and differs greatly from many other compositions by him. After the successful premiere a review appeared in the Grazer Tagespost that is all the more interesting insofar as it was penned by Friedrich Hausegger, a member of the so-called 'progressive camp'. If we think merely of Herzogenberg as the Brahms emulator of his middle and later creative phases, then Hausegger's words correct our one-sided picture of the composer: 'We were most pleasantly surprised by his Columbus. With it the composer proved not only that he can assemble little elements, perhaps ones formed in imitation, to produce a well-formed whole but also that he can draw on impressive resources, that he is able to master a significant subject with a bold and sure hand'.