Spohr: Nonet in F major, Op. 31 - Octet in E major, Op. 32

"Spohr's various works for mixed chamber ensemble have found admirable modern interpreters in the Nash Ensemble. It is not only that their make-up, with a number of distinguished wind players and the excellent Ian Brown working with a string ensemble, is well-disposed to the different instrumental groupings which Spohr liked: they seem to have an affinity with his vein of elegant, undemanding, graceful music-making, the nineteenth-century equivalent of the eighteenth-century serenade... The Nonet, Spohr's most popular chamber work, receives from the Consortium Classicum (Orfeo/Harmonia Mundi) a performance that I thought probed a little deeper than that by the Nash, suggesting a vein of sadness in Spohr's famous chromaticisms and in his eloquent melodies. But it is also a serenade, or a divertimento; and the Nash give it a friendly, light touch. These are charming performances of works that fall very easily on the ear."
John Warrack, The Gramophone