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The sleeve notes for this ambitiously extensive collection of Louis Spohr’s larger-scale string chamber music hails him as: “The most significant German composer between Beethoven and Schumann.” Two hundred years on, that seems a dubious claim – historically, Weber surely proved more influential – but there’s no doubt that in his lifetime, as a violin virtuoso and conductor as well as a composer, Spohr (1784-1859) was a celebrated figure across Europe. As a composer, he was certainly prodigious; he wrote in virtually every genre, and alongside his 11 operas, nine symphonies and about 30 concertos, of which at least 19 are for violin, there were copious songs and chamber music, including 34 string quartets.
The selection made by the ensemble of string players from the Cologne orchestra does not include any of those quartets, but concentrates on works requiring larger forces. Two of the six discs are taken up with Spohr’s four double string quartets, three more with six of his seven string quintets (scored for the Mozartean lineup with two violas); the seventh quintet is included on the final disc, alongside a string sextet, and a potpourri on themes of Mozart.
This is a formidable amount of music, all of it very decently played and almost all of it virtually entirely unknown these days. Spohr, who is often regarded as a transitional figure between the classical and Romantic eras, took Mozart as his stylistic starting point, though in the double string quartets especially there are moments that seem closer to Beethoven. And by the time he composed his final string quintets in the 1840s, composers such as Mendelssohn and Schumann had already taken music into the new Romantic world. But there’s no doubt that this set has its own rewards, and for the musically curious, offers plenty to discover.
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