The adventure begins...

In February 2000 I came across a CD that was part of Hyperion's "The Romantic Piano Concerto" series (Vol. 18, Hyperion CDA66990). It included two piano concertos by Joseph Marx (Josef Marx) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold one of which impressed me in a way that no music had managed before: The Romantisches Klavierkonzert (Romantic Piano Concerto) by Joseph Marx. After having heard this gorgeous late romantic concerto I began to search for recordings of other orchestral works by Marx but when I began to browse through the existing commercial offerings of Marx works I was truly disappointed since the above mentioned piano concerto was the ONLY orchestral work by Marx available at all. There are a number of recordings of his songs with piano, these appear in the Etcetera and FY Solstice labels. The CD booklet of the Hyperion CD written by Brendan Carroll briefly gave some highly interesting information on a number of Marx's orchestral works but these also were unavailable on the international market. Hence, I gave up searching.

Some weeks later, a good friend from England (a collector) sent me a tape cassette with a recording of Marx's 2^nd piano concerto Castelli Romani for Piano and Orchestra that he had received from someone who had taped a German radio broadcast. This recording now ranks as one of the Top 5 of my entire piano concerto collection that currently includes more than 1,500 works. The "Castelli Romani" definitely is an outstanding work of impressionistic romanticism and dazzling beauty. Several audio samples of this brilliant 2^nd piano concerto, but also of many other unknown orchestral Marx works are available at this website.

After having heard the "Castelli Romani", I decided to locate recordings of all other orchestral works by Marx. In the meantime, ASV Records, Pavane Records and FY Solstice released CDs with a part of the Marx chamber works (it seems that Marx's few other chamber works might be issued soon). But regarding his orchestral works - especially his Herbstsymphonie that is mentioned in the booklets of all available Marx CDs - I was still groping in the dark...

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