Hermann Gustav Goetz (Dec. 7, 1840 - Dec. 3, 1876) was a German critic, pianist, and composer. He didn't begin any formal music lessons until age seventeen, when he picked up the piano, but had begun composing a few years before that. He stared working towards a degree in mathematics at the end of the 1850s, but left to attend the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, where he studied piano, and composition with Hans von Bülow. He graduated in 1862. A year later he was appointed the city organist in Winterthur, Switzerland, and taught piano, and began to get his name out as a composer. He had the organist position until 1872, and from1870 - 74, he also wrote reviews for a music magazine.

The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw was a great admirer of Goetz, and said of him, "He has the charm of Schubert without his brainlessness, the refinement and inspiration of Mendelssohn without his limitation and timid gentility, Schumann's sense of harmonic expression without his laboriousness, shortcoming, and dependence on external poetic stimulus; while as to unembarrassed mastery of the material of music, showing itself in the Mozartian grace and responsiveness of his polyphony, he eaves all three of them simply nowhere. Brahms who alone touches him in mere brute musical faculty, is a dolt in comparison to him".

Goetz compositional output included many concertos, chamber music, and a few orchestra works, with Mozart and Mendelssohn being strong influences on him. His Spring Overture, written in 1864, starts with a brief trumpet call, followed by a dark line in the cellos and basses for a while before brightly opening up with a repeat of the trumpet call, and on in to the main body of the work, filled with rich harmonies, and plenty of pleasing melodies.   The influence of Mendelssohn is apparent, and there's an element of Schumann too.  Shaw described this overture as "beautiful".

Here are some recordings of this overture to enjoy!

Magdeburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Radio Philharmonie Hannover des NDR
Orchestre National de l'Opera Monte Carlo