Dima Quartet:Girshenko - SPOHR String Quartets Nos. 33, 35, Potpourri

A great violinist in his own right, Louis Spohr was accepted during his lifetime as one of the most important violinist-composers of early German Romanticism. His quartets, which span more than fifty years of his creative career, combine technical brilliance with loftier musical aims. Written at a particularly trying and eventful time in Spohr's life, 'No. 33' includes an intensely felt 'Adagio molto', one of the finest slow movements in the whole of his output. 'No. 35' realised Spohr's aim to compose a quartet which returned to the classical ideals of Haydn and Mozart, while retaining many features of his own individual style. The 'Potpourri in G major' was the twenty-year-old composer's first work for string quartet, written when Spohr was just setting out to make his name as a violin virtuoso.