Volkmar Andreae was in his day one of the leading conductors in Central Europe. As conductor of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra he dominated Swiss music life for almost half a century, while he was one of the first men anywhere to champion the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. But his real gift lay in composition. His early style was influenced by Richard Strauss, but his music soon developed its own brand of late Romanticism. By turns exuberant and melancholic and always sumptuously orchestrated, Andreae’s music is a major rediscovery. In later years he focused more on conducting and ever less on composing, but this CD leaves you wishing it had been the other way round.