Spohr: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 1 And 3 / Potpourri, Op. 80

Description

Louis Spohr (1784 - 1859)Clarinet Concerto No.1 in C Minor, Op. 26 Clarinet Concerto No.3 in F Minor, WoO 19 Potpourri for clarinet and orchestra, Op. 80 Louis Spohr was born in Brunswick in 1784, the son of a doctorand descendant of a family that had for some generations been firmly established in thecure of souls or of bodies. The family moved to Seesen in 1786 and here Spohr began todevelop his innate musical interests, with violin lessons and attempts at composition.From 1797 he was able to pursue a sounder course of general and musical education inBrunswick, where, in 1799, he was accepted as a violinist in the court orchestra, with theencouragement of the reigning duke, a nephew of Frederick the Great. It was through thispatron that violin lessons were arranged with Franz Eck, a musician from the old Mannheimorchestra, whom Spohr accompanied on a concert-tour to Russia. His return to Brunswick,now with the first of his violin concertos published with a dedication to the Duke, led topromotion and a successful concert-tour to other German cities. The result of this was hisappointment in 1805 as Konzertmeister at Gotha, where he met and married DoretteScheidler, daughter of a singer and herself a harpist and pianist. In Gotha he was able tocontinue his activities as both composer and virtuoso violinist, while securing a goodstandard of performance from the orchestra in a court that paid proper attention to music.There followed further compositions, some for violin and harp to be played by himself andhis wife, and concert-tours that spread his reputation further afield. It was as a resultof success in Vienna that he was invited in 1813 to join the Theater an der Wien asdirector of the orchestra. The appointment now gave him a chance to broaden his activitiesas a composer, with the possibility of the staging of any opera he might write, althoughthe first result of this, his Faust, wasrejected, to be given its first performance in Prague in 1816.Spohr's position in Vienna proving unsatisfactory, in spite ofhis success with the public, he arranged for the termination of his contract and after ayear spent in Italy moved in 1817 to Frankfurt as Kapellmeister at the opera, where his Faust was staged. In 1820 he resigned, undertakingengagements in London, Paris and Dresden and in 1822 accepting the position ofKapellmeister in Kassel. This appointment did not put an end to his concert-tours, whichhe was able to resume during the course of the next thirty-five years. Nevertheless hisassociation with Kassel was to continue, for better or worse, until his death in 1859.During this period he consolidated his reputation abroad and in German- speaking countriesas one of the leading composers of the time, a position that, by the time of his death, hehad begun to lose. Spohr represented a link with the old classical tradition and fashionswere now changing. While much of his violin music, the duets, concertos and the Violinschule, remain of importance for stude