Famous composers and their works, Vol. 2

by Unknown

It was this never-ceasing mellifluous quality that forced itself upon the attention of Chorley and made even that eminent lover of Bellini cry for something else besides candy. Says Chorley: "The most graceful Italian garden, where 'grove nods to grove—each alley has its brother,' is not arranged with a more perpetual reference to reflexion, parallel, reply, repetition, than the largest or the least piece of handiwork put forth by this arithmetically orderly composer. Further, Dr. Spohr's vocal ideas and phrases have, for the most part, a certain suavity and flow, belonging to the good school of graceful cantabile, eminently commendable, when not indisputably charming. But it is difficult, nay, I may say at once, impossible, to cite any motive from his pen, which, by its artless vivacity, seizes and retains the ear; and there are few of his melodies that do not recall better tunes by better men." This sweet level of cantilena undoubtedly also impressed itself on Schumann, who was expressing his admiration of Spohr when he said: "As he looks at everything as though through tears, his figures run into each other like formless, etherial shapes, for which we can scarcely find a name."

In fine Spohr's works reveal to us a man who was deficient in personal force because he was not a creative genius, but who exerted all the influence of an original mind upon his contemporaries because he was wholly at heart and almost wholly in practice in touch with a movement new and absorbing. If Spohr had possessed real creative genius, his devotion to Mozart as a model would have dwindled before the incitements of the movement toward national romanticism which was agitating German literature and art. His yearning toward the freedom and infinite possibilities of chromatic harmonies brought him into direct conflict with the polished symmetry, the veneration for a set form and a conventional distribution of keys, of the classic period of Mozart. Had he been a man of aggressive individuality he would not have made the mistake of putting an intellectual curb on his emotional impulses, but would have spoken according to the promptings of his heart.

But Spohr, though earnest in his purposes and intolerant of all that was not sincere in art, was altogether of too amiable a nature to rudely cross the Rubicon and seize upon the new territory. He was among those who saw the promised land, who felt the embrace of its atmosphere, and who yet hesitated upon the borders. The trumpet call of modern romanticism was sounded in 1821 when Vogl made Schubert's "Erl King" known to Germany, and in the same year Weber thrilled the hearts of his countrymen by giving them a national opera, "Der Freischütz," whose story, like that of Schubert's song, was taken from the folk-lore of the people. Spohr followed these leaders in making use of the national literatures as in "Faust," and the tales of the fireside, as in "Zemire und Azor"; but he emasculated his music in his endeavor to cling to the style of a period which had terminated. What might have been a style leading directly into the restless eloquence of the Wagnerian diction became a "lingering sweetness, long drawn out," and it was reserved for Weber, who had the necessary force, the resistless energy of creative power, to become the founder of true German opera and the artistic progenitor of Richard Wagner.

Wagner showed a warm appreciation of Spohr. He expressed his admiration for the composer in a letter to a Dresden friend written from Paris, in 1860, when he was preparing to produce "Tannhäuser" in the French capital. He wrote thus: "Almost simultaneously I lost by death two venerable men most worthy of respect. The death of one came home to the whole musical world, which deplores the loss of Ludwig Spohr. I leave it to that world to estimate what wealth of power, how noble a productiveness departed with the master's death. To me it is a painful reminder that with him departed the last of that company of noble, earnest musicians whose youth was directly illuminated by the glowing sun of Mozart and who like vestals fed the flame received from him with touching fidelity and protected it against all storms and winds on their chaste hearths. This lovely office preserved the man pure and noble; and if I were to undertake to express in a single phrase what Spohr proclaimed to me with such ineradicable impressiveness, I would say: He was an earnest, upright master of his art. The 'handle' of his life was faith in his art; and his greatest refreshment flowed from the potency of this belief. And this earnest faith emancipated him from all personal pettiness. All that was entirely foreign to him he severely let alone without attacking it or persecuting it. This was the coldness and brusqueness with which he was so often charged. That which was comprehensible to him (and the composer of 'Jessonda' may be credited with a deep, fine feeling for everything beautiful), that he loved and cherished, without circumlocution and with zeal, so soon as he recognized one thing in it—seriousness, a serious intention toward art. Herein lay the bond which attached him in his old age to the new endeavors in art. He could remain a stranger to it, but not an enemy. Honor to our Spohr; venerate his memory! Let us imitate his example."

Another feature of Spohr's music which calls for mention is his predilection for a programme. He was a believer in the ability of the composer to convey his emotions through the medium of absolute music to the hearer. His "Consecration of Tones" symphony, for instance, is an attempt to depict in music the part which music plays in life and nature—an attempt not wholly successful. But these labors give Spohr a place among the founders of modern romantic writing for orchestra, and as such he must be respected. His chamber music is distinguished by the general characteristics of his style, and by a beautiful clearness of construction.

As a composer of violin music and as a performer on the instrument Spohr exercised influence which is still felt. His pupils were Hubert Ries, St. Lubin, David, Bott, Blagrove, Kömpel and C. L. Bargheer, all players of note. David was the teacher of Wilhelmj, whose Doric style preserved all forcible simplicity and repose of the Spohr manner. Spohr's playing was based on the solid principles of the Mannheim school, modified somewhat by the style of Rode, for whom Spohr had a great and well-grounded admiration. But, as we should expect, Spohr in his maturity arrived at the possession of a style which was wholly the product of his own individuality. The fundamental and vital characteristic of his playing was his treatment of the violin as a singing voice. He played with immense breadth and purity of tone, with subtle delicacy of touch, and with exquisite refinement of phrasing. He had no taste for the free style of bowing cultivated by Paganini and was opposed to anything approaching the saltato. He had a large hand and was thus enabled to execute difficult passages of double stopping with accuracy.

Violin technics have been developed so much since Spohr's time that his compositions do not present alarming difficulties to contemporaneous performers. Nevertheless, they were sufficiently difficult at the time of their production, and they remain among the acceptable works for violin. His concertos—at any rate, the best of them—are heard occasionally in concert rooms to-day, not without pleasure, though they are open to those objections which have been made against his operatic and orchestral music. His earlier concertos show the immediate influence of Viotti and Rode, but his later works were the most valuable contribution that had been made to the literature of the violin, except the Beethoven concerto up to the time when Spohr ceased to compose them. Indeed Spohr must be credited with fully as earnest an endeavor to raise the violin concerto from the level of a mere show piece to that of a serious and artistic composition as either Beethoven or Mendelssohn. Paul David has rightly said: "It was mainly owing to the sterling musical worth of Spohr's violin compositions that the great qualities of the classical Italian and the Paris schools have been preserved to the present day, and have prevented the degeneration of violin-playing.... He set a great example of purity of style and legitimate treatment of the instrument—an example which has lost none of its force in the lapse of more than half a century."

FRESCO IN VIENNA OPERA HOUSE.