Two years before Mendelssohn produced his famous string Octet in 1825, Spohr published the first of four works he would call “double quartets.” One needn’t expend too much time or energy fretting over the designation. Upon eventually encountering the Mendelssohn, Spohr wrote, “Mendelssohn’s popular Octet belongs to quite another kind of art in which the two quartets do not concert and interchange in double choir with each other but all eight instruments work together.” Yet, according to Keith Warsop’s insert note, by the time Spohr came to write his second Double Quartet in E? Major in 1827, he “integrates the players into a more evenly balanced whole.” In other words, he co-opts Mendelssohn’s approach. Moreover, sources that discuss these four Spohr works tend to exchange the terms “double quartet” and “octet” fairly freely. The most significant feature that sets Spohr’s double quartets apart from Mendelssohn’s octet is not compositional technique; rather, it’s that the former are works of a virtuoso violinist and highly talented composer, while the latter is a work of consummate genius, which, of its type, has never been surpassed.

Thus, as the singing of others pales beside Mendelssohn’s brilliant voice, it is difficult to listen to these Spohr double quartets and not find them wanting. The music is not without interest, its melodies are engaging, and its harmonic excursions sometimes adventurous; but it doesn’t fire the imagination, stir the emotions, or linger in the memory. The spell it casts lives in the moment, but it’s not lasting. Such is the charm of these works that they summon recollections of Haydn’s robust, earthy humor and amiability more than they anticipate Mendelssohn’s gossamer sprites and faeries. The Allegro molto finale of Spohr’s D-Minor Double Quartet No. 1 is the one movement that comes closest to foreshadowing Mendelssohn’s Octet, with its semiquaver runs and melodic line in the treble propelled forward by drumming measured tremolandos in the lower voices.

The Forde Ensemble is another of those “flexible” British musical establishments, like the Nash Ensemble, that expands and shrinks in complement depending on the work being performed. The difference is that the group is made up exclusively of string instruments, and its players are drawn from amomore....

Review By Carl Bauman,American Record Guide,January 2010

Spohr is a good…The playing of these double quartets by the British Ensemble is enthusiastic and enjoyable. The recording is good, and it is nice to have both of these works on one disc.

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