The articles I’ve written on Louis Spohr’s works show that he’s a composer worth remembering, one whose works should be a regular part of the concert repertoire. He was highly regarded in his lifetime. Robert Schumann greatly admired him. His 1813 opera Faust was translated into multiple languages and was frequently performed over the next fifty years. In 1852, it had a very successful run in England under Spohr’s direction. Brahms, speaking decades after the premiere of Spohr’s 1822 Jessonda, called it “magnificent.” In Italy his Violin Concerto No. 8 drew so much applause during the music that it drowned out the orchestra at times.

Gilbert and Sullivan put his name next to the two greatest composers of all time. The Mikado sings about

Bach, interwoven
With Spohr and Beethoven
At classical Monday Pops.

Today, many fans of classical music haven’t even heard of Spohr. Why?
(more…)

Louis Spohr’s second double string quartet is a more lyrical work than his dramatic first double quartet. Like all the double quartets, it has two distinct groups of four players, each playing as a unit. The terminology is tricky. When I say “quartet 1” or “quartet 2” here, I’m referring to a subgroup of four players. The work is the “nth double quartet.” For individual violin players I’ll use colon-based notation (group:part). For example, the first violin of the second quartet is “violin 2:1.”

As in the first double quartet, quartet 1 gets the most interesting parts, but the imbalance isn’t as great this time. Violin 1:1 still has the most exciting part; Spohr played this part himself in most of the early performances. He may simply have been a better player than the others he could recruit. George Jellinek’s notes to the Heifetz recording of the first double quartet notes that “wealthy amateurs” often participated in the performances.
(more…)

Louis Spohr wrote four chamber works in a little-used form, the double string quartet. It’s not the same as a string octet; rather, it presents two quartets playing antiphonally and occasionally together. In performance, they’re seated on opposite sides of the stage. This kind of piece is best appreciated by attending a live performance near the stage or using headphones.

His first double quartet, Opus 65, written in 1823, makes good use of the opportunity for back-and-forth music. Performances are likely to involve two existing quartets getting together, in which case the second quartet would feel cheated; most of the good lines go to quartet 1. More specifically, violin 1:1 (the first violin of quartet 1) dominates the music; in early performances, it would have been Spohr himself. His later works in the form treat the two groups more equally.
(more…)

In this post I’m looking at a single song by Spohr, “Das heimliche Lied” (the secret song). It’s part of a set of “Six German Songs,” Opus 103, where the singer is accompanied by a piano and a clarinet. The combination is unusual, but the clarinet is one of my favorite instruments, and he uses it effectively. The Spohr Society has a discussion of the Six German Songs, with information on the people who wrote the texts. Ernst Koch, the author of “Das heimliche Lied” and a contemporary of Spohr, is obscure today but not forgotten.

Right at the start, there’s a question about the song’s title. Most of the sources I’ve found give “Das heimliche Lied,” but the Spohr Society article gives it as “Das heimliche Leid” (the secret suffering). The latter is a more literal description of the poem’s contents, but “secret song” has a poetic feeling that fits. Neither word occurs in the text. It turns out that Koch’s title for the poem was actually “Relique eines Verschollenen” (relic of a missing person), but nobody uses that title for Spohr’s setting. The poem is about emotions that aren’t expressed or perceived, so we don’t know what they are, making the text broadly applicable. We all have feelings we hide from others.
(more…)