Recordings of Witt’s works represent but the tip of a sizeable iceberg; fewer than 10 of his works, as far as I can tell, have been recorded. Yet he is believed to have written as many as 23 symphonies, numerous concertos for various instruments, a considerable volume of chamber music, a number of operas, and an oratorio, Der leidende Heiland (The Suffering Savior), which secured him an appointment as Kapellmeister at the court of the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg in 1802.

Prior to this, however—sometime around 1792 or 1793—while Witt was serving as cellist at the court of Oettingen-Wallerstein and taking composition lessons from Antonio Rosetti, he laid eyes upon four of Haydn’s latest “London” Symphonies—Nos. 93, 96, 97, and 98—which Haydn had sent to Wallerstein. This, according to Keith Anderson’s booklet note, and other biographical sources I’ve come across, was Witt’s moment of dawning light, a light that, paradoxically, would eventually dim his own lamp in the pages of music history. Witt’s worst “crime,” it seems, was not simply imitating Haydn to the point of near plagiarism, but doing so at a time when Beethoven was busy “liberating music” from the strictures of classical content and style, if not quite yet classical form. In other words, Witt chose the path of the arch-conservative. History thereby ended up lumping him together with the lesser contemporaries of Haydn and Mozart instead of with the lesser contemporaries of Beethoven and Schubert, whom Witt outlived by the better part of a decade. Which lumping would have been better for Witt’s posthumous reputation I’m not sure; neither changes the music he wrote.

Witt’s G-Major Flute Concerto, newly recorded here, has been recorded before. It was included on an MDG Gold disc that also contained the composer’s Sixth, so-called “Turkish,” and Ninth symphonies. Johannes Moesus led the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, and the concerto was played by flutist Susanne Barner.

As for the “Jena” Symphony, don’t believe everything you find, or don’t find, at ArkivMusic. As of this writing, the site lists only the current Naxos recording. But the work has appeared on disc before as far back as the 1950s. An LP on the Concert Hall label with Walter Goehr conducting the Netherlands Philharmonic has been transferred to CDmore....

Review By Salustio Alvarado,Ritmo,January 2011

La Sinfonía en Do mayor, llamada “de Jena”, gozó de cierta popularidad entre 1909 y 1957, al ser tenida por la Sinfonía nº 0 de Ludwig van Beethoven, e incluso fue, como tal, llevada al microsurco. Luego Howard Chandler Robbins Landon descubrió a su verdadero autor, Friedrich Jeremias Witt (1770–1836), compositor y violonchelista de la corte de Oettingen-Wallerstein, y a partir de entonces quedó proscrita. Demencial: si es de Beethoven, ¡ah! son los albores de un genio en ciernes, pero si es de Witt, resulta que es un bodrio y además plagia a Haydn. Así se escribe la historia.