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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A new release of Spohr’s oratorio, Des Heilands letzte Stunden (the Savior’s last hours), is out from Carus-Verlag. The solo singers are Florian Sievers, Johanna Winkel, Maximilian Vogler, Arttu Kataja, Thomas E. Bauer, Felix Rathgeber, and Magnus Piontek. The chorus is the Kammerchor Stuttgart, and the orchestra the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. It covers the same ground as Bach’s Passions, from Judas’s betrayal of Jesus to his crucifixion. A booklet in English and German contains Johann Friedrich Rochlitz’ full text with a loose translation, as well as detailed notes.

This oratorio came after Die letzten Dinge, also with text by Rochlitz. It premiered in Kassel in 1835. The earlier oratorio is a disaster movie in music. This is a more introspective work. Unlike Bach’s Passions, this “passion oratorio” tells the story primarily from the perspective of Jesus’s followers. The numbers are mostly dedicated to showing their reactions to his capture, trial, and crucifixion. Bach tells the story from a cosmic perspective; Spohr’s oratorio gets very close to the people portrayed. Even Judas is somewhat sympathetic as he expresses his terror over the situation he’s gotten himself into.
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Louis Spohr’s third symphony, Opus 78, dates from 1828, the year after Beethoven’s death, and there are several indications he was thinking of Beethoven when he wrote it, starting with the key of C minor. It’s on a large scale for the early 19th century. In most recordings it runs half an hour. The instrumentation includes a brass section of four horns, two trumpets, and three trombones.

The slow introduction sets an initially tragic tone but quickly opens up into an expression of hope. The main body continues the conflict of emotions. The first theme expresses a struggle, while the second, made from the same material, is dance-like. The development is brief but surprising; it’s based not on the first and second themes, but on the introduction. This approach recalls the opening mood without breaking the tempo. The coda goes into C minor, creating a moment of doubt, but returns to the major for the final measures.
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Most of Spohr’s best works date from before 1840, but he hadn’t completely written himself out after that. The Septet in A minor, composed in 1853, is worth having in a collection of his music. It’s still clearly his work, but it has a different feeling from his earlier Quintet, Octet, and Nonet. It’s denser in its instrumentation and more contemplative. I’d say there’s a hint of Brahms in it, except that in 1853 Brahms was little-known, and almost all of his compositions were ahead of him. All the instruments — flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, cello, and piano — are equal partners in this work. Spohr clearly expected he’d have good musicians to perform this piece; the piano part is as hard as some concertos, but with fewer opportunities for bows.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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