All the nine symphonies that Spohr acknowledged are now available on record (he suppressed a tenth), and duplication is setting in. The Ninth, based on the old idea of the turn of the seasons, includes some agreeably vernal, summery and autumnal music, but the ''Winter'' movement is distinctly barren of invention, instead of inventing music to describe a barren scene. It needs all the advocacy it can get, which it does from the earlier Orfeo disc by Karl Anton Rickenbacher and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. I thought the ''Winter'' movement more successful there than on the new record; for although Walter has espoused the cause of Spohr nobly, his performances can seem a little under-characterized.
The previous version of the Second Symphony in the catalogue was by Choo Huey and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, interestinglycoupled to the First Symphony of Franz Lachner and given a lively performance. Walter can hardly be blamed for deciding to handle the opening movement as if it were closer to Schumann than to Beethoven (though Spohr's developmental pro-cedures derive from the classical Beethoven rather than from Schumann). He justifies this by his rather Schumannesque playing of the Larghetto and the Presto: that is to say, he suggests the lyrical and reflective rather than the profound or the dynamic. It is a consistent performance of a good work.
The composer can command enough enthusiasts for there to be a Spohr Society, whose Chairman, Keith Warsop, is a well-briefed and eloquent counsel for the defence in his notes. Fellow-enthusiasts may like to fill in their collection of Spohr symphonies from this source. The players have already recorded the others, so this completes their cycle.'