Composer of the Week - Louis Spohr (1784-1859) - Episode 4

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Louis Spohr, considering how he laid the musical foundations for other more famous composers. If history has not been as generous to Spohr as perhaps it might, one reason could be the high wall of Romanticism that seems to stand between us and the composer. The gracious elegance of Spohr's classicism seems altogether less grand than the gestures that were to follow from the pens of Berlioz, Bruckner, Mahler, Strauss and others, who he influenced.