George Templeton Strong was an American Romantic who, after a period of study in Germany, where he frequented the circles of Liszt and Wagner, eventually settled in Switzerland. His music was championed by giants such as Ansermet, Szigeti, Iturbi and Toscanini. Strong’s symphonic poem Ondine, won the approval of Liszt to whom it was dedicated. An extended, programmatic symphonic poem with echoes of Tchaikovsky, Wagner and even Schumann and Dvořák, it translates into music the story of a water spirit trying to regain her lost human soul by marrying an uncomprehending human being. The three colourful programmatic suites, orchestrations of piano duets written some fifty years earlier, here receive not only their first complete recording but their first complete performance since Ernest Ansermet conducted excerpts in the 1940s.