After a long gap, Spohr wrote six final string quartets. The numbering gets confusing because he withdrew the last two, having rewritten one of them in a different key. There’s a detailed discussion by Keith Warsop of these quartets on the Spohr Society’s website.

Important composers are generally expected to produce some of their best work, or at least their most adventurous, toward the end of their lives. Spohr had done his best writing long before. He even lost confidence in his own writing, withdrawing or abandoning several pieces, including the Requiem and the Tenth Symphony. He may have seen himself as a relic. When he died in 1859, Brahms wrote that he was “probably the last of those who still belonged to an artistic period more satisfying than the one through which we now suffer.”

But he wasn’t completely finished! These quartets explore new directions and are less exhibitionistic, and some are rewarding to listen to.
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The year was 1826. Beethoven was revolutionizing the string quartet. Spohr was no musical revolutionary, and he much preferred Beethoven’s Opus 18 quartets to the late ones. His quartets improved in quality and offered some surprises, but he never ventured far from Haydn’s model. This doesn’t mean they aren’t worth listening to; it was a long time before any major composer matched Beethoven’s level of experimentation. Jan Swafford’s biography of Brahms says, “By mid-century the string quartet like the symphony appeared a moribund genre despite the dozens of composers writing them.”

This is the third installment in my blog series on Spohr’s 36 string quartets. Just as a reminder, I’m only a musically literate amateur, and these are my opinions usually based on one or two hearings. Each day I try to listen to one and add some comments on it to this draft, so my mood from day to day can affect my reactions. It’s a tour, not an in-depth analysis.
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