The above-named F major symphony is particularly impresive in this regard, opening with a moody and tightly integrated Allegro and featuring a very ample central Andante in a minor key with gorgeous writing for solo winds. It's just very good music. Elsewhere you will also hear characterful ideas, artfully presented, as in the charming string pizzicatos in the E-flat major symphony's second-movement Allegretto, or the C major symphony's double minuet. The Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Weimar under Nicolás Pasquet plays all four works with freshness and style, and the important contributions of the solo winds are uniformly outstanding. Wolf may not have been a great or important figure in the larger sense, but he had talent, and these very well-recorded performances show him off to excellent effect. At the Naxos price, you simply can't go wrong. [10/7/2005]