This is the second installment in my overview of Louis Spohr’s string quartets. I’ll update this post to link to the other parts as I post them. Here I talk about the ones numbered 11 through 19.

Just how many quartets Spohr wrote is an interesting question. I came across a discussion of the quartets’ numbering while trying to find information on the missing opus numbers. According to the article, Spohr published 34 quartets with opus numbers, and there are two quartets in the WoO section of the catalogue, both of which Spohr numbered 34. Both of the WoO quartets exist in two different versions. That makes 36 distinct quartets. I’ll look at the last ones more closely when I get there.

• Quartets 1-10
• Quartets 20-30
• Quartets 31-36

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Louis Spohr wrote 36 string quartets, more than Mozart or Beethoven, and none of them are very well known. Fortunately, all are available for listening, thanks to a complete set from Marco Polo recorded by several different groups. I’ve started listening to them in numerical order, with plans to write a little about each one. As far as I’ve been able to tell, there’s no such overview on the public Web. Probably someone has written a graduate thesis on the quartets, but I can’t find anything.

While I’m not a professional musician, I’m one of the more activate Spohr fans on the Internet, so I’m giving it a try. The scores on IMSLP and Clive Brown’s Louis Spohr: A Critical Biography have been very helpful.

This post covers the first ten quartets, published between 1807 and 1814.
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Spohr’s late symphonies, the Seventh through the Ninth (or the Tenth, counting the one which he withdrew but didn’t destroy), don’t have the appeal to me of the earlier ones. Still, a complete understanding of his music needs to include these symphonies, and they have some interesting features.

The Seventh, written in 1841, follows an unusual plan. The title is “Irdisches und Göttliches im Menschenleben: Doppel-Symphonie für zwei Orchester” (earthly and godly in human life: double symphony for two orchestras). It’s a kind of concerto grosso, with a small orchestra and a full orchestra. There are three movements, each with its own title.
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