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Ludwig Spohr Edit Profile

also known as Louis Spohr, Ludewig Spohr

composer conductor musician violinist

Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten symphonies, ten operas, eighteen violin concerti, four clarinet concerti, four oratorios and various works for small ensemble, chamber music and art songs. He was the inventor of both the violin chinrest and the orchestral rehearsal mark. His output occupies a pivotal position between Classicism and Romanticism.

Background

Spohr was born on April 5, 1784 in Braunschweig, Germany to Karl Heinrich Spohr and Juliane Ernestine Luise Henke, but in 1786 the family moved to Seesen. Spohr's first musical encouragement came from his parents: his mother was a gifted singer and pianist, and his father played the flute.

Education

A violinist named Dufour gave Spohr his earliest violin teaching. The pupil's first attempts at composition date from the early 1790s. Dufour, recognizing the boy's musical talent, persuaded his parents to send him to Brunswick for further instruction.

Career

After playing a concerto of his own at a school concert with marked success, Spohr was placed under Maucourt, the leader of the duke's band; and in 1798 he started on an artistic tour. His first violin concerto was printed in 1803. In that year Spohr returned to Brunswick and resumed his place in the duke's band. A visit to Paris was prevented by the loss of his favourite violin - a magnificent Guarnerius, presented to him in Russia.

After a series of concerts in Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, and other German towns, Spohr's reputation gained for him in 1805 the appointment of leading violinist to the duke of Gotha. He then began his dramatic masterpiece, Faust, which he completed in 1813, though it was not performed until five years later.

Spohr's strength and inventiveness as a composer were now fully developed, and enabled him to produce large works with astonishing rapidity. He resigned his appointment at Vienna in 1815, and soon afterwards made a tour in Italy, where he performed his eighth and finest violin concerto, the Scena cantante.

Spohr first visited England in 1820, and on the 6th of March played his Scena cantante with great success in London at the first Philharmonic concert. At the third he produced a new symphony (No. 2 in D minor) and, instead of having it led by the first violinist and a maestro al cembalo, conducted it himself with a baton; a great innovation in London at the time. Spohr had a triumphant success both as composer and as virtuoso; and he on his side was delighted with the Philharmonic orchestra. After a transitory visit to Paris, Spohr returned to Germany and settled for a time in Dresden, where German and Italian opera were flourishing side by side under the direction of Weber and Morlacchi.

Spohr could not appreciate Weber's genius; nevertheless Weber recommended him strongly to the elector of Hesse Cassel as Kapellmeister. He entered upon his duties at Cassel on the 16t of January 1822, and soon afterwards began his sixth opera, Jessonda, which he produced in 1823. It was his first opera on Gluck's lines, i. e. with accompanied recitative throughout in place of secco-recitative or spoken dialogue; and it was produced in the same year as Weber's Euryanthe, a work marked by the same departure from German custom. Spohr's resources at Cassel enabled him to produce his new works on a grander scale and with more perfect detail than he could have attained in a less well-endowed post; and he never failed to use these privileges to the advantage of other meritorious composers, though as a critic he was very difficult to please. Soon after his instalment Mendelssohn, then a boy of thirteen, visited Cassel; notwithstanding the disparity of their years, a firm friendship sprang up between the two, which ceased only with Mendelssohn's death in 1847.

Spohr's next three operas, Der Berggeist (1825), Pietro von Abano (1827) and Der Alchymist (1830), attained only fair temporary success. At the Rhenish musical festival held at Dusseldorf in 1826, his oratorio Die lelzten Dinge met with so enthusiastic a reception that it was repeated a few days later in aid of the Greek Insurgents, and became the most famous of his sacred compositions. It is known in English as The Last Judgment. During 1833 he had been working at an oratorio - Des Heilands letzte Stunden, known in English as Calvary or The Crucifixion - which was performed at Cassel on Good Friday 1835, and sung in English at the Norwich Festival of 1839 under Spohr's own direction, with an effect which he afterwards always spoke of as the greatest triumph of his life. For the Norwich Festival of 1842 he composed The Fall of Babylon, which also was a perfect success, though the elector of Hesse-Cassel, unmoved by a petition from England almost amounting to a diplomatic representation, refused Spohr leave of absence to conduct it. His last opera, Die Kreuzfahrer, was produced at Cassel in 1845. Of his nine symphonies the finest, Die Weihe der Tone, was produced in 1832. His compositions for the violin include concertos, quartetts, duets, and other concerted pieces and solos, and among these a high place is taken by four double quartetts, (i. e. octets for two antiphonal string- quartet groups), an art-form of his own invention. He was, indeed, keenly interested in experiments, notwithstanding his attachment to classical form; and the care with which he produced Wagner's Fiiegender Hollander and Tannhauser at Cassel in 1842 and 1853, in spite of the elector's opposition, shows that his failure to understand Beethoven lay deeper than pedantry. Spohr retained his appointment until 1857, when, very much against his wish, he was pensioned off. In the same year he broke his arm, but he was able to conduct Jessonda at Prague in 1858. This, however, was his last effort. In 1859 he died at Cassel.

Achievements

  • One of the greatest German conductors and musicians

Works

All works

Connections

In Gotha Spohr met the 18-year-old harpist and pianist Dorette Scheidler, daughter of one of the court singers. They were married on 2 February 1806, and lived happily until Dorette's death 28 years later. They performed successfully together as a violin and harp duo (Spohr having composed the Sonata in C minor for violin and harp for her), touring in Italy (1816-1817), England (1820) and Paris (1821), but Dorette later abandoned her harpist's career and concentrated on raising their children.

Father:
Karl Heinrich Spohr

Mother:
Juliane Ernestine Luise Henke

Spouse:
Dorette Scheidler