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Though revered as 'the father of Italian opera', Simon Mayr also wrote large scale instrumental and orchestral music. His 1820 Concerto in D minor has an ingenious trick up it's sleeve: it introduces each of the four soloists in turn with the flute, for example, soloing in the first movement and the clarinet in the second. This elegant, lyrical work hints at Beethoven but also at folklore in a winning way. The assured Keyboard Concerto reveals the influence of Haydn on the German-born Mayr whilst the Trio Concertante is imbued with Mayr's vivid operatic impulses. Since 1982 Franz Hauk has served as organist, and since 1995 as choirmaster, at the Cathedral in Menster. Since 2002 he has taught historical performance practice and church music at the Munich State Hochschule fer Musik und Theater in Menchen. He has done much to foster a revival of interest in the composer Johann Simon Mayr.