Product Review

The Bohemian composer Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda (1801-66), perhaps the most important mediator between classicism and romanticism, is now known to experts as an insiders tip between Beethovens, and Schumann and Mendelssohns generation. The new cpo series featuring his overtures and violin concertos most firmly substantiates this judgment. Kalliwoda composed no fewer than twenty-four overtures which may be a record for the 19th c. In their dimensions his violin concertinos, in principle reduced-size violin concertos, are distinguished by highly virtuosic violin figurations.