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Louis Spohr (April 5, 1784 – October 22,
1859) was a German composer, violinist and
conducting|conductor. Born Ludwig Spohr, he is
usually known by the French form of his name
outside Germany.

== Life ==

Spohr was born in Braunschweig (English:
Brunswick) in Brunswick-Lüneburg and showed
talent for the violin from his early childhood. He
joined the ducal orchestra at the age of 15. Three
years later he was sent, with the Duke of
Brunswick's support, on a year-long study tour to
St Petersburg with the virtuoso violinist Franz
Anton Eck. Spohr's first notable compositions,
including his First Violin Concerto, date from
this time. After his return home, the Duke granted
him leave to make a concert tour of North Germany.
A concert in Leipzig in December 1804 put the
influential music critic Friedrich Rochlitz on his
knees, not only because of Spohr's playing but
also because of his compositions, and brought the
young man overnight fame in the whole
German-speaking area.

In 1805, Spohr got a job as concertmaster at the
court of Gotha, where he stayed until 1812. There
he met the 18-year-old harpist Dorette Scheidler,
daughter of one of the court singers, and fell in
love with her. They were married the next year.
They performed successfully together as a violin
and harp duo, touring in Italy (1816-1817),
England (1820) and Paris (1821), but Dorette later
abandoned her harpist's career and concentrated on
raising their children. Her untimely death in 1834
brought him great sorrow.

Spohr lated worked as conductor at Theater an der
Wien, Vienna (1813-1815), where he became friendly
with Ludwig van Beethoven, and as opera director
at Frankfurt (1817-1819) where he was able to
stage his own operas, the first of which, Faust,
had been rejected in Vienna. Spohr's longest post,
from 1822 until his death, was as the director of
music at the court of Kassel, a position offered
him on the suggestion of Carl Maria von Weber. 



== Works ==

Spohr was a prolific composer whose opus list
amounts to over 150 works, in addition to a number
of works without opus number. He wrote music in
all genres. His nine symphonies (a tenth was left
unfinished, but finished by Eugene Minor and
premiered by the 
http://www.bergenyouthorchestra.org/history.html
Bergen Youth Orchestra) show a progress from the
classical style of his predecessors to the
programme music of the ninth symphony, Die
Jahreszeiten (The Seasons). Spohr wrote more
violin concertos than any other great composer of
the time, sixteen in all. Some of them are
formally unconventional such as the one-movement
Concerto No. 8 in the style of an operatic aria.
Better known today, however, are the four clarinet
concertos, all written for the clarinet virtuoso
Johann Simon Hermstedt, which have established a
secure place in clarinettists' repertoire.

Among Spohr's chamber music is a series of no
fewer than 36 string quartets, as well as four
interesting double quartets for two string
quartets. He also wrote an assortment of other
quartets, duos, trios, quintets and sextets, an
octet and a nonet, works for solo violin and for
solo harp, and works for violin and harp to be
played by him and his wife together.

Though obscure today, Spohr's best operas Faust
(1813), Zemire und Azor (1819) and Jessonda (1823)
remained in the popular repertoire through the
19th century and well into the 20th century|20th
when Jessonda was banned by Nazis because it
depicted a European hero in love with an Indian
princess. Spohr also wrote dozens of songs, many
of them called Deutsche Lieder (German Songs), as
well as a mass and other choral works.

Spohr was a noted violinist, and invented the
violin chin-rest. He was also a significant
conductor, being one of the first to use a baton
and also inventing rehearsal letters, the large
letters which are found on sheet music (they
enable a conductor to ask the orchestra to start
playing "from letter C", for example).

In addition to musical works, Spohr wrote an
entertaining and informative autobiography,
published posthumously in 1860.

== External links ==

*http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/societies/spohr
.html The Spohr Society of Great Britain