The Romantic Room is an expansive six-volume set exploring the rich and often overlooked chamber music of Louis Spohr, brought vividly to life by the Wdr Sinfonieorchester Chamber Players. Once hailed as the "German Paganini" and revered across Europe, Spohr was a pivotal figure of early Romanticism - an innovator who shaped the transition from Classical refinement to Romantic expression. This collection showcases his elegant string quintets and sextets, daring double quartets, and characterful potpourri, offering a portrait of a composer whose expressive range and artistic integrity remain strikingly relevant today. Spohr's chamber works are richly crafted and musically intricate, offering both technical challenges and expressive depth. These performances reveal a composer deeply rooted in tradition yet unafraid to experiment, blending lyrical intimacy with bold structural ideas. Following the highly acclaimed Brahms: String Sextets (Diapason d'Or) and String Quintets, the The Romantic Room: Chamber Works by Spohr box set is the Wdr Sinfonieorchester Chamber Players' third release on PENTATONE. The WDR Symphony Orchestra has also released an extensive discography with the label.

The Finnish artist Christoffer Sundqvist is one of the leading clarinetists of his generation, and we are very happy to have won him for our complete edition of Louis Spohr's works for clarinet and orchestra (partly first recordings!). Not only the extremely brilliant and masterful four clarinet concertos can be heard, but also all the other works for clarinet and orchestra, composed at that time for the virtuoso Johann Simon Hermstedt. When Hermstedt played Spohr's potpourri on themes from Winter's opera "Das unterbrochene Opferfest" op. 80 in Leipzig on October 13, 1812, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung commented: "The potpourri for clarinet was not only very happily composed from ideas of the sacrificial feast, but these ideas were also mostly quite excellently processed; and so it would like to stand at the top among the works of this genre. An indispensable complete edition, not only for clarinetists!

After Louis Spohr with the violin duets op.9 and op.13 had rather met the demand of the publishers for conventional teacher-pupil-play literature, he presented with the following duet collections opp. 39 and 67 clearly more demanding works, which have it not only play- but also movement-technically in itself. The two violinists Ursula Schoch and Tjeerd Toch present here the first installment of their complete recording of the duets opp.39 and 67. The members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra show that in these pieces the listener also gets his money's worth.

Violin duets generally have the reputation of being grateful playing literature for teachers and gifted students, but of giving the listener only limited pleasure. With the violin duets Opp. 39 and 67, however, Louis Spohr (1784-1859) presented several works that require two virtuoso players due to their high demands on playing and compositional technique. Ursula Schoch and Tjeerd Toch are both members of the famous Concertgebouw Orchestra and let us get our money's worth in the second installment of their complete recording of the two collections.

Together with Op. 150, the Violin Duos Op. 148 and 153 form Spohr's last cycle in this genre. It is as if Spohr, whose last published compositions included the new duos, once again wanted to show all his ability to write large-scale music with the limited instrumentation. Ursula Schoch and Tjeerd Toch are both members of the famous Concertgebouw Orchestra.

It is both regrettable and incomprehensible that Louis Spohr is virtually unknown today as a composer of oratorios, as he was extremely highly regarded as such by his contemporaries. Among musicologists at least, he is counted together with Mendelssohn as one of the most important German composers of oratorios in the first half of the 19th century. Under the impression of a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Spohr wrote his Passion oratorio Des Heilands letzte Stunden WoO 62 in 1834, which reports the Passion events from an unusual perspective: Instead of an evangelist, the disciple Johannes takes on the role of the narrator directly involved in the events. Together with Mary, the mother of Jesus, he describes the story of Jesus' Passion - in an almost operatic and dramatic manner. The scenes before the judgment of Caiaphas and at the cross with the musically painted earthquake are particularly remarkable. With this conception, Spohr met the public's taste exactly, as people expected not only religious edification from such a work, but also a gripping plot. The premiere in Kassel in 1835 was correspondingly successful. Four years later, an English version was performed in Norwich, where, according to the Times, hundreds were moved to tears. No wonder, then, that Spohr considered this oratorio to be one of the best he had ever composed. Frieder Bernius and the Kammerchor Stuttgart, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and an outstanding ensemble of soloists (Johanna Winkel, Maximilian Vogler, Florian Sievers, Arttu Kataja, Thomas E. Bauer, Felix Rathgeber and Magnus Piontek) make this jewel of early 19th century sacred choral music available again on CARUS in an exquisite recording.