This release features a composer, pianist and conductor who has wrongly been marginalised from contemporary awareness.

Anton Urpsruch was born in Frankfurt on 17 February 1850, and died there on 11 January 1907. These dates show him to be an artist of an era characterised by a multidimensional intellectual climate and a psychological outlook that harked back to traditional values on the one hand, whilst holding out revolutionary prospects on the other.

As an artist, Urspruch was respected by his contemporaries and well established on the music scene. He began teaching at Dr Hoch’s Conservatory at just 28 years of age, at a time when Clara Schumann was teaching there too. The director there was Joachim Raff, who was also his teacher. After Raff’s death in 1882, Urspruch moved to the newly founded Raff Conservatory and taught there for the rest of his life. He dedicated his Piano Concerto to Raff.

His works encompass many genres, from piano pieces through song cycles, chamber music, symphonies, choral works and his comic opera Das Unmöglichste von allem (the most impossible thing of all), which was premiered in Karlsruhe in 1897. His life was centred around his family (he had four daughters with his wife Emmy, the daughter of music publisher August Cranz). His close personal friendship with Franz Liszt brought him a level of support that went far beyond the usual kind of appreciation shown by the more famous and older composer.