Louis Spohr (1784 - 1859)

Piano Trios (Complete) Volume
Three Piano Trio, Op. 119
Piano Quintet, Op. 130

Louis Spohr won an enormous reputation during the nineteenth century as a composer, violin virtuoso, conductor and teacher as well as being renowned for his upright, noble character, a man of convinced liberal and democratic beliefs who was not afraid of speaking out against the repression and autocracy which abounded during his lifetime in the small German principalities (his contemporaries also saw this "upright character" translated into physical terms as he was nearly 6ft 7in tall). He was one of music's great travellers, wrote an entertaining and informative autobiography, compiled an influential violin tutor, invented the chin-rest, was one of the pioneers of conducting with the baton and hit on the idea of putting letters in a score as an aid to rehearsals. So when, in a Hollywood film about music, a Leopold Stokowski-like conductor taps his baton at rehearsal and says to the orchestra: "Back to Letter F, gentlemen", it is Spohr's innovation we are witnessing.

Spohr was born in the North German city of Braunschweig (Brunswick) on 5th April 1784, and as a boy showed talent for the violin. When he was fifteen he joined the ducal orchestra and by the age of eighteen had reached the stage at which the Duke of Brunswick considered him ready for further development. He was, therefore, sent on a year-long study tour with the virtuoso Franz Anton Eck (1774 -1804), taking in various centres on the way to the then Russian capital St. Petersburg. It was at this time that Spohr wrote his first mature compositions - some violin duets followed by his first Violin Concerto, Op.1. After his return home, the Duke granted him leave to make a concert-tour of North Germany and Spohr shot to overnight fame in the German lands after a concert in Leipzig in December, 1804, received an enthusiastic review from the influential critic Friedrich Rochlitz - not only for his violin playing but also for his concertos, especially No.2 in D minor, Op. 2. Spohr now set out on successful career which took him as concertmaster to the court of Gotha (1805 - 12), orchestra leader at Vienna's Theater an der Wien, where he became friendly with Beethoven (1813 - 15), opera director at Frankfurt (1817 - 19) and finally, Hofkapellmeister at Kassel (1822 - 57) where he died on 22nd October, 1859. In between, he found time for numerous concert-tours, most notably to Italy (1816 - 17), England (1820) and Paris (1821), with his wife, the harp virtuoso Dorette Scheidler (1787 - 1834). In later years he reduced the number of his public violin appearances but his renown as a conductor led to many invitations to take charge of music festivals, including the inauguration of the Beethoven Monument in Bonn in 1845 as well as further visits to England in 1839, 1843, 1847, 1852 and 1853. He also trained some two hundred violinists, conductors and composers and, indeed, he was the antithesis of the "lonely, tormented artist" .He loved parties, was a gifted painter, an enthusiastic rose-grower, a keen swimmer and hiker, played chess, billiards, dominoes, whist and ball-games, and, as well as visiting such cultural attractions as art galleries, churches and the like, also toured factories, mines and other industrial installations, all in the pursuit of knowledge. He was also interested in politics and during the short-lived German national parliaments following the 1830 and 1848 revolutions he listened to as many debates as he was able. As a conductor Spohr championed many of the best composers of his time, even when he was not totally in sympathy with their style (Spohr's own idol and ideal was Mozart and, like his hero, Spohr was a committed Freemason). His repertoire ranged from Beethoven's symphonies, including the Ninth, concertos and quartets, Fidelio and the Missa solemnis, to Wagner's Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser, and he helped in the revival of earlier masterpieces such as Bach's St. Matthew Passion. Late in his career he added to his repertoire works by Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz and Liszt among others.

From the start of his career, Spohr aspired to be something more than just a violinist who wrote concertos, like Viotti, Kreutzer, Rode, Paganini, de Beriot, Vieuxtemps, Ernst or Wieniawski, and expanded his compositional scope to include opera, oratorio, cantata, lieder, symphony, chamber music and, especially in the first years of his marriage, works involving the harp. Gradually he took a place among the leading composers of his day, particularly for his fine concertos, overtures and first two symphonies. Soon after settling in Kassel, the success of his opera Jessonda in 1823 and his oratorio Die letzten Dinge (The Last Judgment) in 1826 won him a place in the accepted pantheon of great composers. Spohr's importance for his contemporaries and what captured them and enraptured them was his richness of harmony and command of modulation and chromaticism. While the content of his works made him, along with Weber, a pioneer of early Romanticism, he generally adhered to classical proportions when it came to form although his four programme symphonies helped to establish this genre. Later in the nineteenth century this classical side of his personality appeared old-fashioned to those brought up on the heady sounds of Wagner, Tchaikovsky or strauss and led to his relegation from his former high status. His best works, however, stayed in the repertoire throughout the century, while Jessonda was still staged at intervals in Germany (it was admired by Brahms and Strauss, among others) until it was banned by the Nazis because it showed a European hero marrying an Indian princess. In Great Britain The Last Judgment remained a favourite of provincial choral societies until the First World War when a reaction against things Victorian set in. A few works have stayed with us - the enjoyable Nonet and Octet are often performed by groups who want items to programme alongside the Beethoven Septet or the Schubert Octet; the 8th Violin Concerto, Op. 47, the one "in the form of vocal scena", can still tempt virtuosi; as can the four fine clarinet concertos (recorded on Naxos 8.550688-89). However, the slow revival of the rest of his output is only now under way but is already uncovering many delightful pieces.

The piano, however, had proved a notable exception to Spohr's gradually growing artistic triumphs. His own piano technique was rudimentary. Indeed in 1838 his Kassel assistant Moritz Hauptmann wrote to a friend: "Spohr said the other day that he would give a hundred Louis d'or to be able to play the piano." But Spohr was nothing if not dedicated in his determination to attempt "all branches of composition", as he put it. Within eleven years of Hauptmann's comment, he had produced five piano trios which rank among the best of the works dating from the later stages of his career. In the early 1800s he had felt that the piano, as it had been developed then, was not suitable for concerted works at all but only for the salon. By 1820, when he was in London and heard the English Broadwood pianos of the time, he changed his opinion and, as Dorette by now had been forced to give up the harp for health reasons, he composed for her a Piano and Wind Quintet in the hope of encouraging her to take up the instrument on which she had excelled in her youth. The quintet relies for its piano technique on the models of the virtuosi of the day such as Clementi, Field, Dussek, Hummel, Moscheles and Ries. Chopin, who thought the work "most beautiful", also complained that it was almost impossible to work out a practical fingering. So there events stayed until Spohr remarried in 1836, after Dorette's death. His new wife, Marianne Pfeiffer, was an accomplished amateur who soon introduced Spohr to the latest piano works of composers like Mendelssohn, Chopin and Schumann. Fired with enthusiasm Spohr composed three large-scale sonatas for violin and piano, a number of smaller pieces for the same combination and a mass of songs with piano accompaniment. His first Trio in E minor, Op.119 was completed in May, 1841,and appeared to rapturous acclaim by the critics so that his publisher was soon asking for more. It was not for nothing that the trio was published as Trio Concertant, for, as one reviewer pointed out: "Through all the details of its construction, even to the manner of using the instruments in combination, it has no parallel in the trios of Beethoven, Hummel, Mendelssohn, or any other writer." It was Spohr's specialist knowledge of string techniques which enabled him to give the violin and cello equality with the piano and also to introduce novel sonorities which earlier trio composers scarcely envisaged, such as at times giving the cello the real bass of the ensemble with the pianist's left hand playing well above it. The succeeding Trios No.2 in F major, Op. 123 of 1842, No.4 in B flat major, Op. 133 of 1846 and the two recorded here continued this process.

The very opening of the Piano Trio No.1 in E minor, Op. 119 exemplifies the quintessential Spohr emotion of wistful pathos and the work as a whole is a fine expression of its composer's artistic personality. A firmer tone is injected by the march-like second subject which then accompanies scintillating bravura passages - part of the trio's "concertant" ambience. The contrasting moods of the two main themes are closely intertwined until the restrained conclusion. The broad lyrical theme (there is only one) of the slow movement develops a declamatory intensity as it is presented in a variety of settings; again, peace reigns at the end. The Scherzo was an immediate hit; one reviewer wrote: "One wants to hear it again and again" and it has been described both as almost a forerunner of a Slavonic Dance and as jazzily syncopated. In contrast, its Trio has a waltz-like tune on the strings along with a brilliant display by the piano. The finale draws together many strands with a fiery main theme, a more relaxed second subject, possible hints of both the first movement and Scherzo and - a magical moment - the return of the slow movement melody. The closing bars arrive at a peaceful and beautiful resolution.

During the period in which he composed his five trios (1841 - 49), Spohr also wrote two other large-scale works featuring the piano; at the start of 1843 came his Piano Sonata in A flat major, Op. 125, dedicated to Mendelssohn; while the Piano Quintet in D major, Op. 130 was completed in September, 1845. The inclusion of the standard quartets scoring of two violins, viola and cello as part of the ensemble alters the terms of reference; the extra violin and the viola have to be catered for and, accordingly, the concertante style of the trios is reduced. Spohr combines three main solutions - contrasts between the piano and the string group, duets between the piano and a string instrument (usually the first violin) and concerto-like sections. The first movement is nearer to Beethoven than usual with Spohr in the way in which a concise motif is used at the core of the musical argument. The minor key Scherzo, which comes second, has an air of suppressed menace but its Trio is a complete contrast with sparkling waltz-like rhythms and a concerto-like role for the piano. The slow movement offers a peaceful refuge from the surrounding activity with a typical Spohr mood of dreamy sentiment and the finale crowns the work with a bouncy main theme and a richly romantic second subject for the strings where the piano takes the subordinate role.

Keith Warsop
Chairman, Spohr Society of Great Britain

If you have enjoyed this recording and would like to find out more about Spohr and his music, write to: The Secretary; Spohr Society of Great Britain; 123 Mount View Road; Sheffield 58 BPJ; United Kingdom.

The Hartley Piano Trio
The Hartley Piano Trio was formed at London's Royal Academy of Music in 1980 under the guidance of Sidney Griller. A scholarship from The Leverhulme Trust brought further study, followed by a number of prizes and awards including the Incorporated Society of Musicians Young Artists Series and the Park Lane Group's Twentieth Century Music Series. The Trio, with a repertoire drawn from all periods, is in great demand throughout Britain and Europe and has undertaken concert-tours in France, the former Yugoslavia and Switzerland, in addition to festival appearances at Aldeburgh, Manchester and King's Lynn. Recordings include British, Czech and American trios, as well as a Beethoven disc that contains the composer's own trio version of his second symphony.

Thelma Handy
Thelma Handy started learning the violin at the age of nine and subsequently won an Associated Board Scholarship to study with Jaroslav Vanecek at the Royal College of Music where she won prestigious prizes for both solo and chamber music. She was awarded post-graduate scholarships from the Royal Society of Arts and the Countess of Munster Trust which enabled her to continue her studies with Franco Gulli in Boomington, U.S.A. She has given performances of concertos by Sibelius, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Mozart in London and in 1991 made an extensive tour of Australia giving recitals and concerto performances. She was a member of the English Chamber Orchestra for eight years and in 1995 joined the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as their Associate Leader.

Martin Outram
Since studying at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, Martin Outram has enjoyed a wide ranging career as soloist, quartet player, teacher and freelance musician. Several works have been written for him, notably concertos by David Gow and Adam Gorb. Recent solo appearances have included concertos in the Royal Festival Hall, the Aldeburgh Festival and in Liverpool, and last year he gave a recital at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. He frequently appears with the pianist Michael Freyhan, and has made a recording of twentieth century British viola music. He is also a member of the Maggini Quartet and, since 1985, a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.