Have you ever looked up over the proscenium arches or along the upper walls of still-existing nineteenth-century concert halls and observed the medallion bas-reliefs of the composers considered immortal at the time? There you will recognize the visages of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. You will also most likely encounter the profile and name of Louis Spohr. Who is he, and what is he doing there?
In 1843, after surveying the contemporary musical scene, the English journal Atlas expressed the critical consensus: “We think of Spohr, then, as of one already and surely canonized to immortality. We hail his presence as we should that of Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven.” Mendelssohn, Schumann, Weber, Chopin all held him in the highest regard, as did Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Dvorak somewhat later. For example, Schumann reported, “To my question ‘Who writes the best fugues among living composers?’ Mendelssohn answered unhesitatingly ‘Spohr.'” How could someone considered that significant have been so totally disregarded over the past century?
The need to answer this question has become almost urgent in the face of a deluge of recordings of this forgotten master. By themselves, Marco Polo and Naxos (two branches of the same company) have poured forth some twenty-five CDs of his symphonies, concertos, and chamber music, with more to come. Other labels have added to the stream, including a CPO release of Spohr’s only a cappella Mass, Op. 54. The time and opportunity for an in-depth reassessment has arrived. This is a sneak preview.
Born in Brunswick, Germany, in 1784, Louis Spohr (d. 1859) was reputed to be, along with Paganini, one of the two greatest violin virtuosos of his time. He first wrote compositions to showcase his talents, but his ambitions as a composer went well beyond the bravura. He idolized Mozart, became a friend of Beethoven, and strove to incorporate in his art the highest ideals of beauty and refinement. He produced more than 150 works, including operas and oratorios (including The Last Judgment and Calvary). He also grew to be one of Europe’s best conductors, being among the first to use the baton to obtain greater orchestral precision. His pedagogical legacy included a seminal work on the violin, the Violinschule. He was so popular throughout Europe that there was probably no other composer whose works were programmed more frequently.
Spohr’s eclipse began in the latter half of the nineteenth century and became total in our own. Well, not quite. Spohr never completely disappeared. His Nonet in F, Op. 31, the Octet in E, Op. 32, and the Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 52 were simply too delicious to leave behind, but they were and are only on the fringes of the repertory. (The Nonet and Octet are available on CRD 3354 with the Nash Ensemble; the Quintet is coupled with the superb String Sextet, Op. 140 on a beautiful MD&G CD L 3448, featuring the Ensemble Villa Musica.) What accounts for this? Can his contemporaries have been so mistaken?
The decline of Spohr’s reputation is not a tale of how the mighty have fallen, for Spohr was never mighty in terms of titanic striving or towering achievement. Rather it is a reflection of how the status of music written for sheer enjoyment has changed in the wake of the late romantic and modern ages, which dismissed such delight as unworthy of Promethean endeavor. As twentieth century German musicologist Theodor Adorno came right out and said: if it’s easy and pleasant to listen to, it’s not a serious work of art. If one believes this, one must particularly resent pleasant music that people once took as seriously as they did that of Spohr.
However, one need not condescend to Spohr to see his merits or, for that matter, his demerits. His music is not mere amusement. His achievements are real, and they deserve revival. His ideals of clarity, balance, and refinement hearken back to the era of Haydn and Mozart. At the time of his death he was eulogized as the last link to that great period. This is not how he was seen during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Then he was greeted, not as the last of the classical, but as the first of the exciting new romantics who were opening new fields of expression. He was noted for daring innovation in harmony and form. In fact, Beethoven complained: “He is too rich in dissonances; pleasure in his music is marred by his chromatic melody.” Yet, today, it is Beethoven’s music that we still find alarming in its almost harsh rawness, while Spohr’s chromatic harmonies have melded to mildness and hardly phase modern ears. Aside from surprising listeners with distant modulations, Spohr’s music was especially known and prized for its sweet lyricism, its dreamy melancholy, and its sometimes seemingly spontaneous vivacity.
Yet Spohr had his limitations. In a way, they were also his assets. The famous conductor Hans von Bulow called Spohr the “father of musical goodwill.” His amiability makes his music attractive and appealing, but also limits its emotional range. That range can sometimes seem constricted to a wearisome “noble melancholy.” However, in his best music that same sentiment rises to a level that is almost Schubertian in its poignance and power to move. In any body of work as large as Spohr’s one is bound to encounter melodic and harmonic formula that stamp the less-inspired compositions as routine, if not repetitious. But what astonishes is that even in his weaker works there are such strengths and elegant beauties to be found.
While Spohr’s symphonic works are especially variable, his chamber music is among the most beautiful and flowingly lyrical of the early romantic period. In the general terms of his development, Spohr’s symphonic works go from strength to weakness, while his chamber music begins weakly and grows substantially. There are many exceptions to this rule. Of his symphonies, the First (Marco Polo 8.223363, coupled with No. 5), Second (Marco Polo 8.223454, coupled with No. 9), Third (Marco Polo 8.223439, coupled with No. 6), and Fifth are the most compelling. His later propensity for program works and tone painting weakened his sense of dramatic structure and led him to rely too strongly on modulations and chromatic harmonies that no longer hold a novelty for today’s listener. The exception is the delightful nature painting in the opening movement of Symphony No. 4 (Marco Polo 8.223122), in which Spohr ingeniously depicts a forest of twittering birds and the arrival of a storm. His later symphonies depicting the history of music (No. 6), “The Earthly and Divine in Human Life” (No. 7), and the seasons (No. 9) are less impressive: they occasionally sound like bloated serenades.
Spohr called quartets “certainly the most difficult of all compositions,” and his very earliest efforts proved the point. However, he went on to compose thirty-six quartets over a span of fifty years. By his Op. 29 Quartets he was already a master. Marco Polo has recorded half the canon with the New Budapest Quartet, and they contain many glories. To experience Spohr’s Schubertian charms and eloquence, start with the first two volumes (Marco Polo 8.223251 with Quartets Nos. 27 & 28; and 8.223252 with Quartets Nos 29 & 30), then move on to volumes 6,7 and 8. Spohr’s quatuors brillants, written for display as mini-violin concertos with string trio support, are generally less interesting. Marco Polo’s three volumes of Spohr’s string quintets are well worth trying, as are the five scintillating piano trios released on Naxos (8,553164; 8.553205; 8.553206, all with the Hartley Piano Trio).
The concertos consist of eighteen for violin and four for clarinet. Only four violin concertos have been recorded so far by Marco Polo, but they are among Spohr’s finest: Nos. 2& 9, and 7 & 12. The clarinet concertos are a major rediscovery. No. 3 especially must be counted a masterpiece. How can a work of this quality not be in the repertory? These four treasures can be found on two budget Naxos CDs in stunningly good performances featuring clarinetist Ernst Ottensamer with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Johannes Wildner (Nos. 1 & 3 on 8.550688; Nos. 2 & 4 on 8.550689). Overall, Marco Polo and Naxos deserve the highest praise for an endeavor of this scope and worth.
Spohr’s Mass (issued on CPO 999 149-2) shows what his contemporaries may have found new in him. Written for five soloists and two choirs, it is intricate, highly chromatic and harmonically challenging. The first choral group Spohr presented it to found it incomprehensible. Bright, almost modern sounding, it is written with a wonderful sense of freedom and fluidity. The highly original Angus Dei could come from 1921 rather than 1821. Despite is intricacy, it has great clarity and transparency of texture. This Mass is a joy. It is alertly and beautifully performed by the Rundfunkchor Berlin.