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.
This is the last of four posts on Spohr’s string quartets. Here are the earlier ones in this series:
Quartet 31
Spohr completed the Opus 132 quartet in A major in 1846. On the whole, it’s not that bad but not that distinctive. The first movement sticks close to standard sonata form, though it has the bold key jumps we expect from Spohr. The second movement starts off with a very expressive theme, but as a whole it isn’t up to his best slow movements. The scherzo has cross-rhythms, 2 against 3, to add excitement, and the trio has an unusual sound with broken chords in the violin, making me think of a hurdy-gurdy. The finale starts off with a bold statement but doesn’t quite follow through. The ending has a characteristic Spohr joke, as it seems to end with strong major chords but then fades into a quiet finish.
Quartet 32
The 32nd quartet, Opus 141 in C major, took me by surprise. The first movement is marked Allegro moderato, and is one of the most calm and contemplative of any of the Spohr quartets. All the instruments get interesting stuff to do. The first violin gets some fancy passages, but they aren’t excessive.
The second movement, Larghetto, is one of the best slow movements in the quartet series. It’s simple with a lot of feeling, built largely on interplay among the instruments. A rhythmic figure in the second violin and viola enhances the feeling of the second theme. The Scherzo is very rhythmic; the trio is slower but is also livened by rhythmic figures. The first violin gets most of the spotlight in this movement.
When I got to the last movement, I realized how rarely Spohr’s music is sheer, uncomplicated fun. This movement is, using a three-note figure which is tossed from instrument to instrument like a ball. It has one of Spohr’s surprise endings; after ending with some joyous major chords, it adds on a 4-1 “Amen” cadence. He must have been in a good mood when he wrote this, even if bad things were going to follow.
Quartet 33
Quartet no. 33 in G major, Opus 146, is another keeper, with some unusual features. The first violin dominates, but without as much fancy passage work as usual. The first movement is marked Allegro, but few of the notes are shorter than eighth-note triplets, and it has a rather mellow sound. Spohr uses a trick that Haydn liked, a false recapitulation in A flat before the real one in G. The movement ends quietly with two pizzicato chords.
The second movement is marked Adagio molto in C minor. In the first section, the violin has a simple melody over a largely pizzicato accompaniment. The middle section is in A flat with a more complicated texture. There’s a strong sense of sadness in the coda.
The scherzo in G major, marked Presto, is in 2/4 time and sounds like a quickstep march. The trio changes to 6/4, goes to the key of C, and sounds waltz-like. The scherzo and trio return, fully written out, and in its second appearance the trio starts out in E flat before modulating to G. The final return of the scherzo is very short.
The finale has a surprise of its own; it’s in G minor, in a quartet in G major! It’s in full sonata form, with a substantial development. The return of the second theme brings the music to G major, as you’d expect, but the coda puts things in doubt again. Chromatic notes shed uncertainty on the major mode, and the quartet closes with a diminuendo from fortissimo to pianissimo on G major chord. This type of ending occurs a lot in the quartets.
Quartet 34
There’s room for argument over whether Spohr’s 35th and 36th quartets should count among his official works. Clive Brown writes:
In the years 1856 to 1858 he made several further attempts to complete substantial works, none of which satisfied him sufficiently to be considered worthy of publication. The first of these was a string quartet in G minor, probably written during the autumn of 1856. After playing it through at his winter quartet soirées he extensively remodelled it, changing the outer movements to E flat major. Even in the new form, however, he was not satisfied, and despite giving it the opus number 155 he laid it aside. … He came to the same conclusion about a final string quartet in G minor, Op. 157 — which was his last substantial work to be completed — and withheld it from publication.
He withdrew these two quartets after he broke his arm in December 1857, an accident from which his violin playing never fully recovered, and his frustration may have affected his decision.
The result is that Quartet No. 34, Opus 152, is the last canonical quartet and the last chamber work he published. It’s in E flat.
This quartet opens with a slow introduction, whose introductory motif is used in both the first and second themes of the Allegro. The development contains a brief fugal passage. The second movement is marked Larghetto con moto, in the usual A-B-A form, with a brief reference to the middle section at the end.
The minuet has an unusual texture, with lots of dotted eighths and sixteenths. Sometimes the first violin plays them as the melody part, sometimes they accompany the other parts. The trio consists of a double-stopped melody in the first violin. The finale, like the first movement, contains a fugue in the development, this time a full-blown fugue rather than just a hint of one. The ending uses the chromatic dying away which Spohr employed a bit too often.
While the 34th quartet has some interesting ideas, it doesn’t live up to its two predecessors.
Quartet 35
The 35th quartet, Opus 155, is an oddity in several ways. Spohr wrote it in 1856 and had it performed the same year. He then rewrote it from G minor to E flat, which couldn’t have been a small change, but he still wasn’t satisfied. The score wasn’t published until the 21st century, though it wasn’t lost.
The first movement is unusual. The opening theme doesn’t participate in the development and doesn’t come back in the recapitulation. Only in the coda does it make a brief return. Spohr liked surprising key changes, but the second theme is even more tonally adventurous than usual. The second theme dominates the development, and the recapitulation comes back to it. Since it doesn’t stay in one key for long, it takes careful attention to figure out just when the recapitulation starts. New ideas are good, but I don’t think they entirely work here.
The second movement, marked Andantino and in the key of B flat, is monothematic, with a simple theme in the first violin. The conclusion is one of Spohr’s chromatic endings, and this one works pretty well. The third movement is a minuet with a classical feeling; some irregularities in the phrasing keep the listener alert. The minuet and trio are repeated, followed by a return of the minuet with a final ending.
I’m not sure what to say about the finale. It’s marked Allegro non troppo, but the performance by the Dima Quartet (the only one I have access to) is Moderato at most. Frankly, it ruins the movement. I can’t say how much I’d have enjoyed it at a better tempo.
Quartet 36
Spohr similarly pulled his last quartet, Opus 157, from publication. According to Brown, it was his “last substantial work to be completed.” This quartet, in G minor, continues his trend away from virtuoso solo playing and toward a more introverted ensemble sound. It’s one of the shorter quartets, just a bit over 20 minutes as played by the Moscow Philharmonic Concertino Quartet. The first theme uses gentle syncopation. The recapitulation presents the second theme and then the first theme. The music is pleasant but a bit repetitive.
The second movement, marked Larghetto, has a simple melody similar in feeling to the corresponding movement in the previous quartet. The second theme is more rhythmic and troubled. The minuet, in G minor, is energetic, with a lot of third-beat accents.
The finale, Allegro molto, is a kind of 9/8 gigue in G minor. The final measures vacillate between minor and major before coming to a quiet conclusion on a G major chord.
Summing up
What can I say about this whirlwind tour through half a century of music? When Spohr published his first quartet, Haydn was still alive. When he finished his last one, Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann were no longer living. He may not have kept up with the current fashions in music, but his works certainly evolved.
He thought of string quartets largely as a vehicle for his own performances. By all accounts, he was a master violinist and devised innovations in playing the instrument. Today’s violinists should be grateful to him for inventing the chin rest. The scores are full of detailed instructions on how to play the notes. The idea of a string quartet as an ensemble work often got left behind. His best chamber works were for other combinations of instruments. I’ve written about some of them in other posts on this blog.
Listening to all these quartets and writing about them gave me a chance to explore music that hasn’t gotten much attention. I could have gone through Beethoven’s or Mozart’s quartets, but every note of each of those works has been analyzed many times. Here I’m going up against only a handful of commentaries. I don’t claim to be a professional or to have studied the music in detail, but I’ve pushed my boundaries in listening critically to music.
Maybe some performing organization will come across these posts and find them helpful in sorting through the quartets. They shouldn’t accept my hasty judgment on its own, but what I’ve written might help to pick some that are worth a closer look. If my posts encourage performance of his works, I’ll be glad. Mohr Spohr!