Andreas Romberg numbers among music history’s forgotten composers. He was celebrated as a violin virtuoso and a composer, but this did not keep him from falling through the safety net into historiographical obscurity with its often-unjust judgments. We are recording his symphonies over time in the hope that he will receive more attention as a composer. Bonn, Hamburg, and Gotha were his career stations. In 1793, while still in Bonn, he wrote his Messiah, and in 1800 he also performed it in Hamburg, his new place of work. He without doubt regarded it as his favorite and main work, and over the years he repeatedly revised it. The rerelease of our first recording of this moving and impressive work is truly a thrilling rediscovery. klassik-heute.com in April 2008: “Some marvelously atmospheric delights that do not fade away after a single hearing – of which I have been happy to convince myself in what so far have been three complete ‘sessions.’ This recording premiere of this impressive and stirring work marks the beginning of a CPO series in cooperation with the ZEIT Foundation and Deutschlandradio: Musica sacra Hamburgensis 1600-1800. Romberg wrote his Messiah in 1793 while in Bonn. He clearly regarded it as his main work and his favorite one as well, and he repeatedly returned to it for revisions.