Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields - Spohr: Double Quartets (1998)
EAC | APE (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 01:50:24 | 595 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Hyperion | Catalog: CDD22014
EAC | APE (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 01:50:24 | 595 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Hyperion | Catalog: CDD22014
Louis Spohr's inventive streak is evident in his creation of the double quartet, a novel form that opened the string octet to new textural, antiphonal, and contrapuntal possibilities. However, like many of Spohr's other chamber experiments, his strategies occasionally led him into unintended compositional difficulties, and his results were most successful when he put aesthetic considerations over cleverness. Spohr's showy writing for the first violin, flamboyant and widespread in the Double Quartet No. 1, caused unevenness in the ensemble's balance and exposed the bareness of the other parts.