One of the most versatile musicians in Europe, Louis Spohr was accepted during his lifetime as one of the most important composers of early German Romanticism. The Quintet No. 3 in B minor dates from his first successful years in Kassel, and stands out as one of his finest chamber works. The legend of Spohr as ‘‘soft and sentimental’’ does an injustice to the wide range of his music, yet this quintet displays that side of his artistic personality at its best. If the B minor Quintet comes from a happy period in Spohr’s life, by the time of the Quintet No. 4 in A minor (1833-34) the shadows had begun to close in, culminating, in November 1834, with the death of his wife. Despite Spohr’s many personal and professional difficulties, however, the Quintet No. 4 exhibits a confident assertion of the will to face up to life’s problems, with surprisingly little of the wistful lyricism characteristic of much of his earlier music.