According to the thoroughly credible words of his contemporaries, Johannes Bernardus van Bree, the long-time musical director of the Felix Meritis Society of Amsterdam, was not only an extremely talented violinist and composer. He was also, to the delight of those around him, a very pleasant, flexible character who strove all his life to please others. This made him shy away from tormenting the conservative capital of the Netherlands with avant-garde provocations. However, it did not stop him from skilfully and sensitively composing unusually appealing works in the conventional vocabulary of the early Romantic years. His highly dramatic Overture in the "unfinished" key of B minor and his original Symphonic Fantasy, which is a mere stone's throw away from Robert Schumann, are particularly surprising.