Chapter IX: Part 9

The original documents for a biographical sketch, excepting the vast mass of manuscript music, are less abundant than with most other musicians of the highest rank. For this fact several causes may be assigned. Schubert was as careless of fame as Shakespeare. He was shy of disposition and inclined to withdraw himself from the world's gaze. He was not a virtuoso, and was never called upon, like the youthful Mozart, to play the piano or any other instrument before crowned heads, or in the presence of a public wild with enthusiasm; nor did he ever come into prominence as a director or conductor, like Handel and Mendelssohn. There was thus no occasion for him to make long journeys and become personally known to his contemporaries. In the course of his short life, except for a little travelling in rural Styria and Upper Austria, he never went outside of Vienna; and there he was not, like Beethoven, thrown habitually into the society of aristocratic people; his few companions were for the most part of humble station, though some of them in later years were not unknown to fame. The obscurity of Schubert during his lifetime cannot be better illustrated than by the fact that such a kindred spirit should have lived so many years in the same city with Beethoven--and Vienna was not then a large city--before attracting his attention. Nor did Schubert acquire distinction as a musical critic, like Schumann, or leave behind him writings characterized by philosophic acuteness or literary charm. He was simply and purely a composer, the most prolific, all things considered, that ever lived. He poured forth with incredible rapidity, songs, symphonies, sonatas, operas, masses, chamber-music, until sudden death overtook him. A great deal of this music he never heard himself except in his innermost soul; much of it still remained in manuscript forty years after his death; during his life he was known chiefly as a song writer, and in that department his unequalled excellence was recognized by few, while it was too soon for any one to comprehend the significance of his creative work in its relations to the development of modern music. Thus the reputation of Schubert, more than that of any other composer of like eminence, is a posthumous reputation. His existence was too large a fact for mankind to take in until after he had passed away. These facts account for the comparative slightness of biographical material in Schubert's case. There is, nevertheless, material enough to give us an adequate picture of that singularly simple and uneventful life, the details of which are largely comprised in the record of the compositions turned off one after another with bewildering rapidity.

Among biographical sources the first place belongs to the sketch "Aus Franz Schubert's Leben," by his brother Ferdinand Schubert. It was published in Schumann's "Neues Zeitschrift für Musik," 1839, numbers 33-36, and is so good as to make one wish there were much more of it. Between 1829 and 1880 personal reminiscences of Schubert were published by Mayrhofer, Bauernfeld, Schindler, Sofie Müller, and Ferdinand Hiller, bibliographical notes of which are given in Grove's "Dictionary of Music," Vol. III. p. 370. The first attempt at a thorough biography was the book of Kreissle von Hellborn, "Franz Schubert," of which the second edition, published at Vienna in 1865, is an octavo of 619 pages. Though dull and verbose in style, and quite without literary merit, its fullness and general accuracy of information make it a very valuable work. An English translation by Mr. Arthur Duke Coleridge was published by Longmans, Green & Co., in 1869, in 2 vols. 8vo, with an appendix by Grove, containing the results of researches made among Schubert manuscripts in Vienna in 1867. Much slighter works are the biographies by Reissmann (Berlin, 1873), Higgli (Leipsic, 1880), Frost (London, 1881), and the article in Wurzbach's "Biographisches Lexicon" (Vienna, 1876). The article by Sir George Grove, in his "Dictionary of Music" (London, 1883), for critical accuracy and thoroughness of information leaves little to be desired. There are also many excellent and profoundly appreciative notices of Schubert and his works scattered through Schumann's "Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker," 2ᵉ Aufl., Leipz., 1871. From the sources thus enumerated, as well as from a long study of Schubert's songs and piano music and an acquaintance more or less extensive with his other works, the foregoing sketch has been prepared.

_Reproduction of a lithograph portrait by Schlick, made in 1855, Spohr being then in his seventy-second year._]

LUDWIG SPOHR

Ludwig Spohr, celebrated as a composer and as a violinist, was born on April 25, 1784, at Brunswick. His father, a physician, and his mother both had musical inclinations, the former being a flute player and the latter a pianist and singer. They left Brunswick when Ludwig was two years old and went to Seesen, where the early childhood of the future composer was passed. The boy's musical gifts made themselves known early in life and he sang with his mother when he was only four years old. According to his own story in his autobiography, he began to play the violin without instruction at the age of five. He must have shown some talent, for he was turned over to Herr Riemenschneider for instruction. In a short time he was allowed to practise music with the family in the evenings and with his parents performed trios by Kalkbrenner for violin, flute and piano.

About the year 1790 or 1791, Dufour, a French violinist, arrived at Seesen and the boy, having heard him play, did not rest until he became the Frenchman's pupil. Dufour perceived the child's great gifts and persuaded Dr. Spohr to abandon the idea of educating his boy in medicine, and to decide to make a musician of him. While studying with Dufour, Spohr made his first crude attempts at composition, even beginning an opera, which, however, went no further than an overture, a chorus and an aria. Dufour advised that the child be sent to Brunswick to continue his studies. At Brunswick he lived in the house of one Michaelis, a rich baker, and studied the violin under Kunisch, of the Ducal orchestra, and counterpoint under Hartung, an old organist. Hartung was very severe with his young pupil and scratched out so much that the boy felt that none of his ideas were left. However, the ill health of the organist brought the lessons to an end in a few months, and this was all the instruction in theory that Spohr ever received. He now continued his studies by reading scores, which Kunisch obtained for him from the theatre library. He made such progress that he appeared at one of the concerts of the Catherine School with a violin composition of his own. His success was such that he was invited to play at the subscription concerts of the Deutsche Haus and was allowed to play for practice in the theatre orchestra, where he became acquainted with much good music.

He was now, by the advice of Kunisch, put under the instruction of Maucourt, the leading violinist of Brunswick. A year later the young violinist set out for Hamburg with a few letters of introduction and a determination to appear as an artist. He failed, however, to get a hearing, and his money being exhausted, he set out on foot to return to Brunswick. In his despair he determined to make a personal appeal to the Duke of Brunswick, to whom he drew up a petition and presented it when he met the nobleman, walking in his park. The Duke asked who had worded the petition. "Well, who but I myself?" answered Spohr; "I need no help for that." The Duke said: "Come to the palace tomorrow at eleven; we will then speak further about your request." Upon which the boy departed quite happy. The Duke questioned Maucourt about Spohr's ability, and when the lad called the next day told him that he was to play one of his own compositions at the next concert in the apartments of the Duchess. His performance so pleased the Duke that the nobleman promised him instruction under competent masters and appointed him chamber musician, Aug. 2, 1799. Spohr's salary was small, but it made him independent, and enabled him to take his younger brother, Ferdinand, to live with him.

At first the young chamber musician heard a good deal of French music, but an operatic company from Magdeburg introduced him to Mozart's music, and he says in his autobiography, "Mozart now became for my lifetime my ideal and model." He spent whole nights studying the scores of "Don Giovanni" and "Die Zauberflöte." Now, too, he played chamber music and first learned Beethoven's quartets. Finally the Duke asked him to select a teacher among the great violinists of the day. He at once named Viotti, but he had given up music for the business of selling wine. Ferdinand Eck was the next choice, but he declined to receive pupils. Francis Eck, his younger brother, accepted the Duke's offer and Spohr was sent with him to St. Petersburg, where he had engagements to fill. They left Brunswick on April 24, 1802. Owing to Eck's engagements his instruction of Spohr was irregular, but the boy gained much instruction from constantly hearing him. The young violinist was very industrious, often practising ten hours a day, composing considerably, and painting for recreation. While on this tour he wrote his first published violin concertos, Opus 1, A minor, and Opus 2, D minor, and the "Duos Concertants" for two violins, Opus 3. In St. Petersburg he met Clementi, Field and many minor musicians, and played frequently in chamber-music rehearsals. He also wrote in 1803 for Breitkopf and Härtel, the eminent Leipsic publishers, an article on the state of music in Russia. He returned to Brunswick in the summer of that year and heard Rode for the first time. He gave a public concert which pleased the Duke and resumed his duties as a member of the orchestra.

In 1804 he started for Paris with his fine Guarnerius violin, given him by Remi, a Russian violinist. Just outside of Göttingen it was stolen from the carriage. Spohr returned to Brunswick and with the Duke's help got another violin. Then he made a tour, playing in several German cities, including Leipsic, Dresden and Berlin, in the last place having the assistance of Meyerbeer, then a clever pianist thirteen years old. In 1805 Spohr became leader of the Duke of Gotha's band. He married Dorette Schneidler, a harp-player, and wrote for her and himself some compositions for harp and violin. He wrote his first opera, "Die Prüfung," which reached a concert performance. With his wife in 1807 he visited Leipsic, Dresden, Munich, Prague, Stuttgart, Heidelberg and Frankfort. His second opera "Alruna" was written in 1808, but it was never performed, though accepted at Weimar. In this year Spohr went to Erfurt to see Napoleon's congress of princes, but found that ordinary human beings like himself could not enter the theatre which they attended in the evenings. He persuaded the second horn player in the orchestra to allow him to take his place and practised on the horn all day. In the evening, being forbidden to stare at the august audience, he viewed the assembled potentates in a small mirror which he had taken with him for that purpose.

The year 1809 is important in Spohr's history for two reasons. While making a tour he received at Hamburg a commission for an opera, "The Lovers' Duel," and at Frankenhausen in Thuringia he conducted the first music festival in Germany. For the second of those festivals in 1811 he wrote his first symphony in E flat. The opera was also finished in the winter of 1810-1811. His first oratorio, "Das jüngste Gericht," was written for the Fête Napoleon at Erfurt and produced there Aug. 15, 1812. It was in the composition of this work that he found himself hampered by his lack of skill in counterpoint. He bought Marpurg's work and studied it. But Spohr was dissatisfied with his opera and with his oratorio. He felt that he was too much under the dominance of Mozart, and resolved to free himself from that master's influence. He says in his autobiography that in "Faust" he was careful to avoid imitating Mozart.

In 1812 he made his début at Vienna as violinist and composer with such success that the leadership of the orchestra at the Theatre an der Wien was offered to him. The conditions were very favorable, so he gave up his position at Gotha and betook himself to the Austrian capital. There his duties were burdensome, but he was in the musical centre of Europe. He met Beethoven, and was on terms of friendship with that great master, whose genius, however, he did not fully appreciate. Among his treasures when he left Vienna was a canon for three voices on some words from Schiller's "Maid of Orleans" written for him by Beethoven. Spohr's "Autobiography" contains some interesting anecdotes about Beethoven's conducting.

Spohr's Viennese sojourn was successful, but on account of disagreements with the manager of the theatre he left the city in 1815, and made a visit to Prince Carolath in Bohemia. His next musical undertaking was the conduct of another festival at Frankhausen. His cantata, "Das befreite Deutschland," was there produced. He afterward went on a tour through Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and his eighth violin concerto ("Scena Cantante") was written to please the public of the last-named country. In Italy he met Rossini, whom he never admired as a composer. He also met Paganini, who treated him with much courtesy.

In 1817 he returned to Germany. While travelling and giving concerts with his wife, he received an offer from Mr. Ihlée, director of the theatre at Frankfort, to become conductor of the opera there. He accepted the offer and at once set out for his new post. One of his first acts was to obtain the consent of the managers to the production of his opera "Faust" which he had written in Vienna five years before. He says, "At first, it is true, it pleased the great majority less than the connoisseurs, but with each representation gained more admirers." His success encouraged him to new dramatic attempts, and he set to work on an operatic version of Appel's "Der schwarze Jäger" (The Black Huntsman). He soon learned, however, that Weber was at work on the same subject, and he abandoned his opera. While looking for a new libretto he wrote the three quartets, Opus 45. In September, 1818, he began work on his "Zemire und Azor," of which the text had been previously used by Grétry in his "La Belle et la Bête." Disagreements with the managers of the Frankfort theatre caused him to resign his post there in September, 1819.

In 1820 he visited England at the invitation of the Philharmonic Society of London. His début was made at the opening concert of the season, March sixth, when he played with much success his Concerto No. 8. At the next concert he was to have appeared as leader. "It was at that time still the custom there," he says in his autobiography, "that when symphonies and overtures were performed, the pianist had the score before him, not exactly to conduct from it, but only to read after and to play in with the orchestra at pleasure, which when it was heard, had a very bad effect. The real conductor was the first violin, who gave the tempi, and now and then when the orchestra began to falter, gave the beat with the bow of his violin." Spohr induced Ries, the pianist, to let him make an experiment, and he conducted, after overcoming the opposition of the directors, with a baton, for the first time at one of these concerts. The success of the new method was so great that the old way went out forever. His symphony in D minor was produced at this concert, and at the last concert of the season another of his symphonies was heard for the first time in England. At his last concert, his wife, who had been since her arrival in England busily engaged in mastering the Erard double action harp (she had before played the single action instrument), appeared and was much applauded. Her health subsequently failed, and she died in 1834. Spohr married a second time in 1836. His second wife was Marianne Pfeiffer, the elder of the two daughters of the Chief Councillor of Cassel. She was a good pianist and played together with Spohr with considerable success. She died Jan. 4, 1892.

Spohr visited Paris for the first time on his way home from England. In the French capital he made the acquaintance of Kreutzer, Cherubini, Habeneck and other eminent musicians, all of whom received him with courteous consideration and showed a warm interest in his music. He gave a concert at the Opera with satisfying success. Cherubini was particularly pleased with his work, and Spohr tells with pride how the old martinet of the Conservatoire made him play one of his quartets three times. Spohr returned to Germany and took up his residence in the artistic city of Dresden, where he found Weber engaged in producing "Der Freischütz," already a pronounced success in Vienna and Berlin. Weber was offered the post of Hof-Kapellmeister by the Elector of Cassel, but he declined it because he did not wish to leave Dresden. He warmly recommended Spohr, who received the appointment, accepted it, and on Jan. 1, 1822, entered upon his duties in the city which was to be his home for the rest of his life. The first new work studied there under his direction was his own "Zemire und Azor," which was produced on March 24, and repeated several times in the course of the year. His family arrived at Cassel in March, and he settled down in the domestic circle and began the composition of "Jessonda," which he finished in December, 1822. In a letter written in January, 1823, he says: "I have been latterly so much engaged upon a new opera that I have somewhat neglected everything else. It is now ready, and I am right glad to have completed so important a work. If I expect more from this opera than from the earlier ones, it is because of my greater experience, and the inspiration I felt in the study of almost every number of the successfully written libretto." The opera was produced on the birthday of the Elector, July 28, 1823, and was at once successful. Spohr writes (Aug. 2, 1823): "This work has made me very happy, and I have reason to hope that the opera will please much in other places."

Reproduced from a lithograph portrait drawn by W. Pfaff.]

[Music: Sextett

Louis Spohr]

At this time Spohr continued the composition of chamber music and formed a quartet, consisting of himself, Wiele, solo violinist of the court orchestra, Ferdinand Spohr, viola, and Haseman, 'cello. About this time, too, he wrote the first of his four double quartets, which were then a great novelty. He visited Leipsic and Berlin to conduct first performances of "Jessonda," which in both cities achieved great success. In 1824, he enjoyed the society of Mendelssohn during the winter in Berlin. Returning to Cassel he wrote his opera "Der Berggeist," which was produced at the marriage of the Elector's daughter on Mar. 23, 1825, and was well received.

In the same year Rochlitz, editor of the Leipsic _Music Journal_, offered him the text of the oratorio, "The Last Judgment," and he set to work on it at once. The oratorio was produced in the Lutheran church of Cassel, on Good Friday, Mar. 25, 1826, and made a deep impression. In 1827, he produced another opera, "Pietro von Albano," which in spite of Meyerbeer's enthusiastic praise, had little success. In 1831, he finished his "Violin School," a book of instruction which is still held in esteem though not regarded as the best. In 1832, political disturbances, in which Spohr played the radical and offended the Elector, interrupted the opera performances at Cassel for a long time, and the artist devoted his time to oratorio and instrumental composition. In 1832 he wrote his most noted symphony, "The Consecration of Tones," and in 1834 he was at work on his "Calvary," which was produced at Cassel on Good Friday, 1835. He went to England a second time in 1839, to conduct "Calvary" at the Norwich Festival. The success of the work was so great that he was commissioned to write "The Fall of Babylon" (the book by Edward Taylor) for the Norwich Festival of 1842. In 1840 he conducted a festival at Aix-la-Chapelle, and in 1842 he produced Wagner's "Der Fliegende Holländer" at Cassel.

He had heard much in its praise from Dresden, and having read the work was at once pleased with it. In writing to a friend he said: "It interests me, nevertheless, in the highest degree, for it is written apparently with true inspiration--and unlike so much of the modern opera music, does not display in every bar the striving after effect, or effort to please. There is a great deal of the fanciful there-in; a noble conception throughout; it is well-written for the singer; enormously difficult, it is true, and somewhat overcharged in the instrumentation, but full of new effects, and will assuredly, when it once comes to be performed in the greater space of the theatre, be thoroughly clear, and intelligible.... I think I am so far correct in my judgment, when I consider Wagner as the most gifted of all our dramatic composers of the present time." This opinion of Spohr's is creditable to his judgment as a musician and his generosity as a man. He worked hard and gave a performance which pleased the public. He wrote to Wagner of the success of his work and received from the young composer one of his characteristic letters of gratitude.

The Elector of Hesse-Cassel, unmoved even by a monster petition headed with the name of Lord Aberdeen, declined to permit Spohr to go to England, and conduct the "Fall of Babylon" at the Norwich Festival. The oratorio was produced without his assistance and was highly successful. He went to England, however, at the beginning of his summer vacation and gave some profitable concerts. In 1844 he brought forward his last opera, "Die Kreuzfahrer" ("The Crusaders"). For this he had arranged his own libretto from a play by Kotzebue. The success of the opera, performed at Cassel and Berlin, was brief. He made a trip to Paris, where the Conservatoire orchestra honored him with a special performance of his "Consecration of Tones." He conducted the "Missa Solemnis" and the Ninth Symphony at the Beethoven Festival at Bonn, in the same year. In 1847 he again visited London, when his "Fall of Babylon," "Last Judgment," "Lord's Prayer," and Milton's eighty-fourth psalm were presented in three concerts by the Sacred Harmonic Society. In the same year the twenty-fifth anniversary of his assumption of the directorship at Cassel was celebrated by a performance of excerpts from his operas.

The revolutionary events of 1848 interrupted Spohr's flow of compositions. He felt, as he wrote to his friend Hauptmann, that "the excitement of politics and the constant reading of newspapers incapacitated him from giving his attention to any serious and quiet study." In 1849, while recovering from an illness caused by a fall on the ice, he planned his ninth symphony, "The Seasons," which he wrote shortly after his recovery. He went to Breslau in the hope of hearing Schumann's "Genoveva," but owing to delays heard only some rehearsals. During his two weeks' stay in Breslau, honors were heaped upon him. Banquets were given, concerts of his music were arranged, and his opera "Zemire und Azor" was performed at the theatre. In 1850 he was made to suffer from court malice. The Elector, probably to chastise him for his radical political ideas, refused him permission to take a summer vacation. He went away without leave, and the result was a lawsuit with the managers of the theatre, which after four years he lost by a technicality.

In 1852, at the invitation of the Covent Garden management, he again visited England to produce his "Faust," which was successfully given on July 15 with Castellan, Ronconi, Formes and Tamberlik in the principal parts. In 1853 Spohr showed once more his respect and consideration for the rising genius of Wagner by devoting his energies to a careful production of "Tannhäuser." The letters of Spohr show that while he heartily sympathized with Wagner's irresistible sincerity of purpose and the honesty of his dramatic art, he, like many others, found the new master's manner of writing hard to comprehend. He exclaims in one letter to Hauptmann: "What faces would Haydn and Mozart make, were they obliged to hear the stunning noise that is now given to us for music." Nevertheless Spohr saw the germs of a noble dramatic style in these works of Wagner, and after his successful and artistically admirable production of "Tannhäuser," he turned his attention to "Lohengrin." Owing, however, to the opposition of the Elector and the court, the work was not produced, and, indeed, Spohr never heard it. In the same year (1853) he made his sixth visit to London, conducting three concerts of the New Philharmonic Society, at which, among other things, his own double symphony and Beethoven's ninth were performed. His opera "Jessonda" was put in rehearsal at Covent Garden by Mr. Gye, but Spohr had to return to Cassel before it was produced.

On his return journey he planned his septet for piano, two stringed and four wind instruments, one of his most admired chamber compositions. In 1854 he passed his summer vacation in Switzerland and visited Munich. In 1855 he visited Hanover, where he heard his seventh violin concerto played, as he writes, "in a very masterly manner, by Joachim." On his departure from Hanover the Royal Hanoverian Chapel presented him with a very handsome conductor's baton. In 1856 Spohr became conscious that his productive powers were failing. He wrote two quartets and a symphony, all three of which he condemned, after repeated alterations, to remain in manuscript and silence. In 1857 he made a trip through Holland and returned to Cassel much refreshed. On Nov. 14, much against his inclination, the elector retired him from active duty on a pension of fifteen hundred thalers per annum. He soon became reconciled to his retirement, but two days after Christmas he met with a more serious misfortune in a fall which broke his left arm and rendered him incapable of further violin playing. This was a source of deep grief to him and no doubt prepared his spirit for the final resignation of all earthly joys. How he clung to his artistic endeavors may be seen in a letter to Hauptmann (April 6, 1858) in which he says: "I am now perfectly convinced that I cannot accomplish any great work more. I regret to say that my last attempt of the kind failed, and my requiem remains a fragment; nevertheless, as the subject, as far as the _Lachrimosa dies illa_, at which I stuck fast, pleases me well, and seems to have much that is new and ingenious in it, I shall not destroy it, as I should like to take it up again, and shall make another attempt to complete it." He devoted half a day to this attempt, but the effort only brought him to a final determination to abandon composition for good and all.

In the beginning of July he went to Prague, when the 50th anniversary of the Conservatory was celebrated by three musical performances, one being of "Jessonda." On the way home he visited Alexandersbad, returning much refreshed. Yet thenceforward his spirits declined; he complained to his wife that he was weary of life because he could no longer do anything. In September, however, he summoned enough interest to go to the Middle-Rhine Festival at Wiesbaden and in October to Leipsic. In December, 1858, he occupied himself once more as a teacher, giving lessons gratis to a poor girl who wished to become a teacher. On April 12, 1859, he made his last appearance as a conductor, directing his own "Consecration of Tones" symphony at a charitable concert by the Meiningen court orchestra. In the course of the summer he made a few short journeys, but could not conceal from himself their evil effects. On Sunday, Oct. 16, a change in his condition became manifest. On retiring that night he expressed to his wife a hope that he should "at length have a good night's rest." In the morning he awoke calm and refreshed in spirit, but his physician at once saw that the end was at hand. He lingered, surrounded by those he loved, till Oct. 22, when at 10.30 in the evening he peacefully passed away. In 1883 a statue was erected to his memory.

* * * * *

Spohr's principal works are as follows: oratorios and cantatas--"Das jüngste Gericht" ("The Last Judgment," first version, 1812), "Die Letzten Dinge" ("The Last Judgment," second version, 1826), "Des Heilands letzte Stunden" ("Calvary," 1835), "Der Fall Babylons" ("The Fall of Babylon," 1841), and "Das befreite Deutschland" ("Free Germany"), MS.; operas--"Die Prüfung" ("The Trial," 1806), "Alruna" (1808), "Die Eulenkönigin" ("The Owl Queen," 1808), "Die Zweikampf mit der Geliebten" ("The Lovers' Duel," 1811), "Faust" (1818), "Zemire und Azor" (1819), "Jessonda" (1823), "Der Berggeist" ("The Mountain Spirit," 1825), "Pietro von Albano" (1827), "Der Alchymist" ("The Alchemist," 1830), and "Die Kreuzfahrer" ("The Crusaders," 1845); church music--mass for five solo voices and two five-part choruses, opus 54: three psalms for double chorus and soli, opus 85; hymn, "Gott du bist gross" ("God thou art great"), for chorus, soli and orchestra; symphonies--No. 1, E flat, opus 20; No. 2, D minor, opus 49; No. 3, C minor, opus 78; No. 4, "Consecration of Tones," F, opus 86; No. 5, C minor, opus 102; No. 6, "Historical symphony," G, opus 116; No. 7, "The Earthly and Heavenly in Men's Lives," for two orchestras, C, opus 121; No. 8, G minor, opus 137; No. 9, "The Seasons," B minor, opus 143; eight overtures, 17 violin concertos and concertinas, 15 violin duets, 33 string quartets, 8 quintets, four double quartets, 5 pianoforte trios, 2 sextets, an octet and a nonet, and many songs. Schletterer's catalogue of his works (published by Breitkopf and Härtel) carries the opus numbers up to 154, many of the _opera_ embracing six compositions, and there are a dozen compositions without opus numbers, among which are some of his operas and oratorios. In all he left over two hundred works, in all fields of composition.

It is difficult for us at this day to fairly estimate the importance of Spohr as a figure in musical history. Dates show us that his finest works chanced to see the light about the same time as the over-shadowing masterpieces of Weber and Mendelssohn. Thus "Faust" produced in 1818, was eclipsed by "Der Freischütz," in 1821, and his "Calvary" (1835) by "St. Paul" (1836). His "Last Judgment" alone had a free field for a time. But though we with over half a century's perspective find the masterworks of Weber and Mendelssohn still in the foreground, while Spohr recedes into the middle distance, the contemporaries of these composers saw them standing apparently shoulder to shoulder at the front of the picture. Spohr's influence upon those who lived when he did was very considerable, and, more than that, there are certain features of his style, which, it cannot be doubted, presented themselves as attractive models to his immediate followers along the path of musical progress.

Believing himself to be a disciple of Mozart, and striving to preserve in his writings the suave beauty and sculpturesque repose of the Mozart style, Spohr was at heart a romanticist, was in the vanguard of the new romantic movement in Germany, and established in his compositions some of those peculiarities which have come to be regarded as special characteristics of romantic utterance. While, therefore, he created no school and, except in violin playing, has had no large following, he exercised over his younger contemporaries a discernible influence, which cannot be disregarded. That no one in our time looks to the works of Spohr for models, does not obliterate the fact that he was an influential factor in the development of that romantic school which has given us all that is greatest in music since the death of Beethoven. One critic has well said of him: "Spohr's noble sentimentality and warmth of expression excited during his lifetime all the youth of Germany into an unusual enthusiasm. The composer's influence is now somewhat less than it was, and indeed latterly his productions have been underrated, but as all that is genuine resists momentary bias, Spohr's works are once again coming to the fore. In history, Spohr stands as a most important link between the old and new romantic schools of German tonal art. As a tone-poet he possesses an individuality so strongly marked, and so important an idiosyncrasy, that he cannot like Marschner, Kreutzer, Reissiger, and others, be identified with the school of Weber, but stands almost independent between the last-named master and men like Mendelssohn and Schumann."

The special feature of his style, which the critic just quoted calls an "important idiosyncrasy," was his mastery of chromatic modulations. The use of chromatic harmonies is characteristic of the romantic school, its further development being seen in the "Tristan und Isolde" of Wagner. It may be well to add, for the further enlightenment of the lay reader, that chromatic modulation is the secret of that flexibility of style and largeness of tonal atmosphere which are found in Wagner's works; and for the first determined movement in this direction we must thank Spohr. Nevertheless, Spohr's use of chromatic modulations was wholly unlike that of later composers. As Emil Naumann says, "If Salieri is justified in saying of certain composers, who use venturesome skips in their modulations, that they are like a man who jumps through the window when the door is open, we may well say of Spohr that he passes the open door at least six times before he decides upon entering." This circumlocution is unquestionably the result of Spohr's endeavor to place upon his natural impulses the curb of the Mozartean polish. The outcome of his self-restraint is the reduction of his operas to a dead level of sweetness that becomes wearisome.

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."

Illustrating Spohr's Opera "Jessonda."]

_Reproduction of a portrait at the British Museum drawn by C. Vogel, Dresden, 1823, and engraved by C. A. Schwerdgeburth. Weber in his thirty-seventh year._]

CARL MARIA VON WEBER

The plenitude of genius in the classical period of German music has a striking illustration in the rapid succession in the kingship which followed the wresting of the musical sceptre from Italy. Beginning with Bach, there has been no break in the line of succession. Had such a thought occurred to the father of modern music, he might have established a sentimental foundation, a handgrasp, a kiss, or an apostolic laying on of hands, which might have been transmitted down to our day without once leaving the direct and royal line. In the musical succession there is an over-lapping, a concurrence of reigns, nearly all the time. The most significant phrase of this phenomenon is exemplified in the subject of this study. Gluck and Mozart might have come like the good fairies of the nursery tale to kiss him in his cradle. Haydn and Beethoven might have waited till their salutations would inspire his youth. He himself might have blessed the infancy of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Wagner. This it is which helped to give Carl Maria von Weber a position in musical history which now we recognize to be commanding in a sense never realized so fully before. His activities range over the territory through which is drawn the indeterminate line of demarcation between the Classic and Romantic schools. He embodies the spirit of both tendencies, though not in an equal degree. Not only does he touch hands with the kings of the eighteenth century and their successors of the nineteenth, but some of his life threads in the fabric of history were interwoven with theirs. We shall see how in the story of his life.

The influence of heredity has a twofold illustration in this story. The musical talent of Weber and, indeed, the general bent of his artistic predilections were an inheritance. An ardent devotion to music and the drama can be traced back a century in the family from which he sprung. The family belonged to the minor nobility of Austria. Of the tastes and inclinations of the first Freiherr von Weber, who was endowed with the title in 1622, nothing is known. But a brother, who had taken up a residence in Suabia, probably after the loss of the family estates in the Thirty Years' War, was musical. He was the ancestor of Fridolin Weber, who, in turn, was the father of several daughters who would have merited a paragraph in the annals of music had they not won a page through the circumstance that Mozart fell in love with one, Aloysia, and married another, Constance. Franz Anton von Weber, a brother of this Fridolin, was the father of Carl Maria, who through Constance became cousin by marriage to Mozart. The brothers, though many other things besides, during the latter portion of their existence were, for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, musicians. Fridolin, who had dropped the "von" from his name when Mozart met him in Mannheim, was reduced to the position of a sort of general utility man in the Court Theatre; Franz Anton, who clung to the sign of nobility and conveyed other titles to himself to which he had less right, enjoyed the distinction of being one of the best viola players of his time and was also an admirable performer upon the double-bass. He even ventured upon the sea of composition with some songs with pianoforte accompaniment, which frail craft bore him up for a considerable time.

Here was one manifestation of the law of heredity; contemplation of the other is less agreeable. From Franz Anton von Weber his son inherited an instability of character which for a time threatened to make shipwreck of his divine gifts. The whole of Franz Anton's life was the career of an adventurer. In his youth he was a titled rake in Mannheim. He became a soldier and was slightly wounded fighting against Frederick the Great at Rosbach. The Elector of Cologne, Clément Augustus, gave him an appointment and on the death of his father-in-law advanced him to the posts which the latter had held--Steward and Court Councillor. From these posts he was dismissed with a small pension by Clément Augustus's successor in the Electorate. It is said that his devotion to music was partly the cause of his dismissal. He was fonder of his fiddle than of his duties, and often went walking in the fields, playing on his viol, his eight children trooping behind him as if he were another Pied Piper. He married into a councillorship and fiddled himself out of it. The Prince-Bishop who appointed him was the gay prelate who "danced himself out of this world into another" and who gave employment to Beethoven's grandfather and father in his court band; the Prince-Bishop who dismissed him was the serious-minded and thrifty Maximilian Frederick, who became the master of Beethoven himself. Those who are fond of delving for remote causes may associate the birth of Weber with this action of Beethoven's patron. Franz Anton, having lost his position and squandered his wife's fortune, started out on a dramatic and musical itinerancy. His wife did not survive her humiliation. He wandered through Germany after three years of service as Chapelmaster to the Bishop of Lübeck and Eutin, and in 1784 found his way to Vienna, where he placed two of his sons under the tuition of Haydn, and a year later married the sixteen-year-old Genoveva von Brenner, a daughter in the family that had given a home to his sons. This delicate flower the adventurer of fifty plucked out of its genial surroundings in the Austrian capital and transplanted to Eutin, whither he now returned to accept the post of town musician, another having meanwhile won the once despised but now coveted chapelmastership. Small wonder that when Carl Maria Friedrich Ernest, the first child of this mistaken marriage was born he should have brought with him into the world a frail and puny body afflicted with a disease of the hip which was the cause of the composer's lifelong lameness.

Concerning the date of Carl Maria's birth there is still controversy. The church records in Eutin give it as November 18, 1786. The date commonly accepted is December 18, 1786. When the boy's first composition was published the father did not hesitate to falsify his age by a year in order to irritate the attention of the _cognoscenti_. The impulse which prompted what must have seemed a trifling peccadillo to the unscrupulous Franz Anton sprang from an ambition which had long consumed his heart and had been intensified by the marvelous career of his nephew by marriage, Mozart: He wished to figure in the world as father of a prodigy. He had been disappointed in the children of his first marriage who, with finer facilities than Carl Maria ever enjoyed, had turned out to be simply good working musicians. The forcing process which he applied in the case of his youngest son was in no respect beneficial. The boy, too, was ambitious to be a Mozart, but in later life, speaking of his second opera, composed at the age of thirteen, he mentioned the circumstance that he had written the second act in ten days, and added: "This was one of the many unfortunate consequences of the numerous tales of the great masters which made so great an impression on my juvenile mind, and which I tried to imitate." The demand which the father made upon the precocious mind of his son was in reality greater than that made upon the boy Mozart's. Leopold Mozart was an ideal instructor and a man of fine moral fibre. In his exploitation of Wolfgang he never sacrificed the things which make for good in art. He may have been injudicious in fanning the spark of genius so industriously that it burst into the too-fierce flame which consumed his son's life prematurely, but the technical training which Wolfgang enjoyed was sound and thorough. This boon was never accorded to the boy Weber. While his father continued the roving life which began anew a year after Carl Maria's birth, he and his son Frederick cared for the lad's education. There was no more stability in the life of the family than in that of a gypsy band. Within a dozen years the father figured in one theatrical capacity or another in Vienna, Cassel, Meiningen, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Weimar, Erlangen, Hilburghausen and Salzburg. Only in the last two towns does it appear that he procured proper instruction for the child. Evidently with all his desire to play the rôle of a second Leopold Mozart he mistrusted his son's gifts, for he once contemplated making a painter out of him, and even after he had exhibited noteworthy fruits of the few months of study pursued under Michael Haydn in Salzburg, and Kalcher in Munich, he seemed willing to sacrifice his son's musical talents to the prospect of making money with Senefelder's new invention of lithography, in which both father and son took a keen interest. The influence of such an irresolute life upon the lad's moral character must also have been pernicious. He grew up behind the scenes of a theatre. One can easily imagine the value of the familiarity with the mimic world thus obtained after he had become a dramatic composer, but it fastened a clog upon his talent which he was never quite able to fling off. When a good teacher, who valued his gifts and devoted himself assiduously to their development, was found in Hilburghausen, study had already become irksome to the lad.

Michael Haydn had been his master for only six months when, his mother having died of consumption in March, 1798, he accompanied his father to Vienna and remained there till July. Next came a removal to Munich, and study under Kalcher for composition and Wallishauser (of Valesi, as he called himself) for singing. Even with imperfect cherishing, however, the boy's creative faculty asserted itself. The first of his music which was published consisted of six fughettos written under the eyes of Michael Haydn. Guided by Kalcher he composed an opera, "Die Macht der Liebe und des Weins," a mass and several vocal and instrumental pieces in the smaller forms. All of this music is lost except a set of variations which he dedicated to his teacher and printed himself by the new lithographic method.