The great Pablo Casals once wrote of Weigl: "His music will not be lost. We will return to it after the storm has passed. We will return to those who have written real music." A revealing statement with "real" being the key word. Austrian composer Karl Weigl (1881-1949) was raised within an urbane Jewish setting and studied under Fuchs, Zemlinsky and Guido Adler. He eventually emigrated to the United States in 1938 to avoid Nazi oppression and spent the rest of his life there teaching in prominent music schools. Despite all that he never eschewed his firmly traditional, highly tonal late 19th century Romantic style in favor of anything else trending at the time. His Symphony No. 1 in E Major, Op. 5 originated at a time when he was working for Gustav Mahler under the role of a solo performance coach at the Vienna Court Opera, and the Mahler influence is discernible. The first pages are like opening the gates to a sun-filled pastoral landscape with nothing but leisurely trails ahead, with splendid orchestration leading you on. But in typical Mahler fashion the orchestral palette turns darker, bolder and foreboding before regaining its self-assured footing in the end. His polished orchestration and harmonic skills are made fully evident in the highly original and expressive slow movement. And as the final movement attests, being behind the times does not signify being stodgy. Its highly charged and rhythmic forward momentum, and audacious writing for the brass section caps the whole symphony on a bold and joyous note.

This recording also presents the orchestral version of an early piano work, the Bilder und Geschichten (Pictures and Tales), Op. 2 which is a suite of short pieces based on fairy tales about Snow White, Elves, Sleeping Beauty and moonlit graves, each one just as delightful as the next. It's hard to believe that only a handful of recordings now available showcase his music, but like many of the best composers of his generation, changing times and tastes have relegated his music to the back shelves of time in order to make room for something more commercially viable. So good on the people at Capriccio for producing this new recording and doing so with pristine quality audio. Hopefully they will also consider recordings of his Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 and 4, which have yet to see the light of day.