This album traces Franz Xaver Richter’s symphonic world from the Kempten years to his mature Mannheim style, spotlighting a voice steeped in counterpoint yet alive with theatre and imagination. The G-minor Sinfonia con fuga unfolds almost like a spiritual symphonic poem, its sombre lamento, intense fugue and jubilant Presto mirroring Passion, Resurrection and Ascension in elevated musical terms. The B-flat symphony culminates in la confusione, a droll tour de force in which overlapping metres turn strict part-writing into playful chaos. By contrast, the later D-minor and G-major works harness Mannheim fire—startling fortissimo openings, singing Andantes, and a final horn-led fugue—without sacrificing polyphonic discipline. With clear textures, buoyant rhythm and a warmly blended yet incisive sound, the orchestra lets Richter’s complexity, humour and devout inwardness speak with uncommon immediacy.