‘Under the conductor Howard Griffiths the OSI performed elegantly and just as brilliantly. In any event, a more convincing case could hardly be made for the music of Krommer, who is largely forgotten as a symphonist.’ This is what klassik-heute wrote of CPO’s release of the first three Krommer symphonies, and Vol.2 now follows with his Symphonies nos. 4, 5, and 7. Generally considered, No.4 was Franz Krommer’s most successful symphony. If one terms it his ‘Dramatic Symphony’ because of its energetic forward motion, then ‘Festive Symphony’ is the title that suggests itself for No.5. In No.7 Krommer, to a certain extent, returns to the dramatic character of No.4 but generates it in a manner that might be termed archaizing or historicizing. The slow introduction of the first movement immediately begins with a theme presented in unison that with its double dotting seems to have been imported directly from the French overture type of the early eighteenth century.