She took her harp to the party and it was Spohr who asked her to play. "I was so deeply moved," the composer remembered, "that I could scarcely restrain my tears. Bowing in silence, I took my leave - but my heart remained behind." Donald Macleod recounts Spohr's courtship and marriage to the harpist Dorothea Scheidler and their concert tours together across Europe, and Spohr's first operatic appointments.

Larghetto (Sonata Concertante in G, Op 115) - Susann McDonald (harp), Louis Kaufmann (violin)

Notturno in C for wind instruments and Turkish band, Op 34 (excerpt) - Consortium Classicum

Aria: Here It Glows, Pure Affection (Faust, Act 1) - Diane Jennings (soprano), Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Geoffrey Moull

String Quartet in C, Op 45 No - New Budapest Quartet