This is a portrait of the German composer Johann Joseph Abert, a kind of bait or, rather, bird call for curious music lovers, which explains why this disc contains only excerpts.

A German composer born in 1832, Johann Joseph Abert’s fame began in 1860. As a composer of chamber music, organ music, lieder, and operas, as this musical portrait shows, he was as much appreciated professionally as he was humanly by his peers. Indeed, he has no reason to be ashamed of Brahms and Schumann, whose works he conducted at Wurttemberg, where he was composer and conductor to the royal court. After discovering him here, fans will want another disc of excerpts from his music for large ensembles, as Abert also composed symphonies, masses, overtures, and concertante music.

Fans can listen to lieder, excerpts from his operas Columbus and Astorga, reworked for piano and voice, the adagio and scherzo from his quartet, and preludes for organ. With this partial overview of his work, they enjoy discovering his style. Sitting between Brahms and the coming modernity, embodied above all by Richard Strauss, Mahler, and Zemlinsky, he has left us an interesting body of work, with pleasant lieder in the beautiful nebula around those of Schubert and Brahms, and above all a very modern cello quartet, here played by the Abert Quartet from Stuttgart, with its abrupt tones, ruptures and breaks approaching those of the moderns.

You must overlook the singers’ frailties, such as the slightly sour high notes of the soprano Larissa Wäspy and mezzo-soprano Roswitha Sicca and  somewhat stilted manner of the tenor Martin Nagy, the baryton Thomas Pfeiffer and the bass baryton Claus Temps, to discover a different sensibility emerging with him, with a harshness, a hardness, and sharp edges. The same is true of his organ works, still very much inspired by the Bach he studied in his student days, indicating another era.

Alongside Brahms, Lizst and Schumann, and ahead of Richard Strauss, Paul Hindemith and Hans Pfitzner, he left a body of work that sought to break new ground, but was still very much part of its time. Richard Strauss himself, before becoming a convinced Wagnerian, was a Brahmsian of the first order, as his “Burlesque for piano and orchestra” shows. But this does not prevent his compositions from being honest and of the highest quality.

Beyond Abert’s persona, this disc offers a glimpse into his era. Abert shared with his peers a state of mind, a sort of Zeitgeist, which this disc conveys very well, a desire to transcend Romanticism without succeeding. We will have to wait for the next generation of Richard Strauss, Paul Hindemith and Hans Pfitzner for that. His work is no less deserving, and will be much appreciated in concert.

A society of Abert’s friends was created after his death. It still exists today. Today, these societies of friends of neglected composers are undoubtedly the best way to renew the musical picture of the past.