Louis Spohr is among my favorite obscure composers, and I wish I could make his music better known. One way to do this might be to write analyses of some of his works. It’s possible that someday a musical organization will look for information on a Spohr piece and come across my posts. In case it happens, I’ll make this article available under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. That says you can use it however you want — for instance, in program notes — provided you give me credit by name and aren’t making money off it. (If you are making money, that’s fine, but I expect a cut. Talk to me. Handouts in a concert run by a non-profit organization are non-commercial for this purpose, even if admission is charged.)
I’m no musicologist, just a music lover. Take this article accordingly.
For this post, I’ll discuss his quintet for piano and winds, Opus 52. It was one of the first Spohr pieces I heard and is among my favorites. The instrumentation is piano, flute, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. It was probably first performed in 1820. He arranged the same quintet for piano and strings as Opus 53, but I haven’t heard that version.
The Quintet follows the classical four-movement pattern for a chamber work. It generally treats the winds as a choir, conversing as a group with the piano. The piano part has lots of fast notes but isn’t a virtuoso piece or chamber concerto; it often serves as accompaniment to the winds.
The first movement, in C minor, is marked Allegro moderato. Spohr loved Mozart, and the opening follows a Mozartean pattern: a stern motif followed by a milder answer. In the reply, the piano plays figurations to accompany the wind choir, setting a pattern the whole work will follow. The opening is repeated, but now the concluding G chord is changed to G-flat. This produces a Schubert-like modulation to the key of D-flat.
The second theme, in the relative major, is march-like, with dotted rhythms. The piano introduces it and then plays triplets to accompany the winds. It’s brief and leads to a third theme, still in E-flat, where the piano’s sixteenth notes become a memorable melody. The exposition wraps up with the winds combining the two motifs of the first theme.
The short development deals mostly with the opening motif. The recapitulation goes off into A major and then A minor. The second and third themes are now in C major, but there’s some uncertainty between major and minor before the movement reaches a cheerful C major conclusion.
The second movement, Larghetto con moto, is in A-flat. The winds play the initial theme, which is calm but gets a bit of sparkle from a dotted figure. The second theme, in 9/16 time and F minor, abruptly changes the mood. A steady ticking of sixteenth notes contributes to the tension. So does a descending-scale figure, until it transforms itself into a graceful bit which the flute and clarinet hand off to each other. It feels Mozart-like, as if Wolfgang had taken off a spooky mask and smiled pleasantly. The A-flat theme returns, and the movement ends calmly, but the flattened sixths just before the end leave a bit of a shadow.
The third movement is called “Menuetto,” with a tempo marking of Allegretto. It isn’t a minuet in Mozart’s style but more of a scherzo at a moderate tempo. Spohr makes good use of the solo horn to open the movement. The main theme, in C minor, has a melancholy feeling, which the piano counters with staccato scales.
The trio in the major mode is for the piano alone, except for a single note played by the horn to add a bass. The minuet recurs with some changes, climbing to a higher pitch. The trio comes back, this time with the bassoon providing the bass note. A shortened form of the minuet, followed by a combination of the minuet and trio themes, wraps the movement up.
The last movement, Allegro molto in C minor, brings back the drama from the first. The piano starts with an angular theme, supported by short chords in the winds. The wind part shifts to sustained lines against the piano’s theme, gradually bringing the tension down. The second theme, in E-flat, is my favorite part of the work; a lively motif in the piano is answered by a melodious phrase in the horn. This phrase gets handed around from instrument to instrument, chopped down to two notes, and doubled in speed. In the development, the piano remains attached to the angular theme while the winds support it with longer notes. In the recapitulation, the second theme is in C major and has the last word in the coda, leading to a happy conclusion.
Formally, there are no big surprises. The sound is distinctly Spohr’s, though you can hear the influence of Mozart and Beethoven. The Quintet is a little-known gem that ought to be heard more often.
