The star attraction in this attractive Suppé collection is the Fantasia symphonica, a recent discovery by the conductor Ola Rudner, following his investigation into manuscripts in Austria in search of a lost symphony that Suppé was thought to have composed.

This is a large-scale work in four movements, learned, yet written with a light touch and of sunny disposition, not far removed in style from Mendelssohn’s Italian; but as the grand introduction plays out, we are aware too of the composer’s north European roots. The spirit of the dance hovers over several passages – witness the poised balletic episode in the slow movement and the eminently danceable third, a short movement that goes with a good swing under Rudner, his orchestra on their toes. The Trio, scored for pizzicato strings, decorated by oboe, is a winsome touch, and the close of the slow movement, shimmering strings over the main theme, beguiles the senses. It’s a work that never lets us forget that Suppé was a man of the theatre. The concluding fugato builds to a brilliant flag-waving conclusion – he was, after all, a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire! As Irving Berlin once penned of his adopted homeland: ‘If this is flag-waving / Do you know of a better flag to wave?’

The Fantasia symphonica is bookended by two of Suppé’s most celebrated overtures in spirited performances, where it’s good to hear this orchestra from Lower Austria playing repertoire that has slipped off the radar save for the occasional outing on New Year’s Day in Vienna. A further novel touch is another premiere: an overture – a picturesque piece of greasepaint – written for an exhibition at the Carltheater, the venue (bombed during the Second World War, demolished in 1961) where Suppé served as music director for many years. Add two pieces of incidental music for The Sailor’s Homecoming, a romantic opera, the one a jaunty dance for the Cabin Boys, the other an imaginatively scored little tone poem depicting a storm, and you have on offer a fresh insight into the now-vanished world of Franz von Suppé, a composer of so many engaging attributes, evidently shared by this conductor.