After Beethoven died, Spohr was for some years seen as his successor, but, after the arrival of Mendelssohn and Schumann, Spohr's music was doomed to fade. This is partly because he lacked the knack of writing a popular tune, and partly because, at least in the "big" fields of symphonies and string quartets, by which we tend to judge composers, his output is easy to dismiss. His third symphony was very popular and an influence on composers from Mendelssohn and Schumann to Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, but it pales beside its successors. Many of Spohr's later symphonies are bathetic in their combination of grandiose title and insipid, forgettable music. As for the string quartets, almost no one has heard them, because there has been only one complete recording, and its seventeen discs (!) were never issued as a boxed set.In fact, much of Spohr's best work is in his later chamber works, and his works for unusual combinations of instruments (see his piano trios, piano quintets, and nonet and octet for mixed ensembles). Intriguingly, one often hears the shadow of Brahms in these chamber works; Brahms's first orchestral serenade was originally for nonet (an ensemble of nine instruments), a genre which was in fact named by Spohr, and Spohr's last symphony, withheld during his lifetime, often sounds like it could be a third Brahms serenade.Spohr's double quartets fall into both above-mentioned categories, being (mostly) late, and definitely for an unusual combo. At one time the first of these was considered the best, but that is likely because it was the only one that was played and heard. Now opinion is more likely to favour 3, but I have a sneaking fondness for 2, with its Brahmsian first movement - at least in the Forde version. All four have been recorded by the players of the Academy of St. Martin in the Field, but with that group's heavy vibrato and lack of lilt I have always found those performances somewhat turgid. The Forde Ensemble is distinctly better, not only more realistically recorded, but more buoyant in the fast movements while not short-changing the slow movements. I only regret that they did not also give us recordings of 3 and 4. I suppose CD buyers felt that, if they had the ASMF set, then they had heard all the music had to say, and so there was no commercial impetus for a sequel. What a shame.