Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Suppe: Overtures

Despite his early ambitions to become a lawyer or a chemist, Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere Suppe-Demelli changed direction and joined Vienna's musical scene in 1840. As third conductor of the Theater in der Joesfstadt he was required to conduct and compose incidental music for popular farces and folk plays. The success of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld made him determined to cash in on the latter's success with echt – Viennese works of his own. Decca was equally keen to capitalize on the advent of commercial digital recording in the early 1980s with a collection of Suppe Overtures. Four years later, in 1989, Sir Neville Marriner and the ASMF recorded a similar program for EMI.