Hidden treasures - Johann Simon Mayr - David in spelunca Engaddi (1795) - Selected highlights

History (based on Iris Winkler’s booklet essay from the present recording and materials from the Grove Dictionary of Music): Mayr’s prodigious output of sacred music, beginning with several student works, is little known, partly because he refused permission for it to be published during his lifetime, though he actually composed 18 masses and 7 Requiems. “David in spelunca Engaddi“ (“David in the Cave of Engedi“) (1795) is the last of a series of four oratorios written by Mayr for the Ospitale dei Mendicant