Virtuoso violinist, conductor and composer, Louis Spohr wrote ten completed symphonies. The first five demonstrate a remarkable creative growth inaugurated by Symphony No. 1 of 1811 which took the music of Spohr's idol, Mozart, as a model. Whilst retaining individuality, classical precedents infuse it with festive vitality. "Truly beautiful and masterly" was Robert Schumann's judgement of Symphony No. 5 in C minor, a work both expansively melodic and quintessentially Romantic - and possibly Spohr's greatest symphonic statement.