More lost gems are unearthed in this fourth volume of music by contemporaries of the Strauss family. This programme takes us from rousing gallops and polkas to gentler salon pieces and waltzes, including music from the era of the fateful Titanic and the changing tastes of the 1920s. It includes orchestral premieres and reconstructions from scant sources, representing a vivid cross section of popular music from a century and more ago. Some of these composers have already been represented in previous volumes, but some will be entirely new even to enthusiasts of this musical period. So much material was destroyed during the two world wars that we are fortunate to have much of this music at all, but it is also thanks to dedicated research and conductor John Georgiadis’ reconstructions that it all sounds so freshly minted in this excellent recording.
