This recording offers us the pleasure of discovering previously unearthed musical gems from a period that is actually very familiar to us.

Hermann Gradener was a contemporary of Antonin Dvorák and Edvard Grieg and worked mainly in Vienna. With family roots in Rostock, Kiel and Hamburg, he was the second 'northerner' in the Habsburg metropolis, alongside the more famous Johannes Brahms. Featured too on this recording is Mathilde Kralik von Meyrswalden, who was based in Vienna at almost the same time as Gradener. She came from a Bohemian family of glassmakers and grew up in Linz, not far from her arguably most important teacher, Anton Bruckner. She composed a single symphony, completely revising it toward the end of her life, giving it an anthemic conclusion.