LOUIS SPOHR: SYMPHONY NO. 6 (“HISTORICAL”)

Louis Spohr has sadly become one of the most underrated composers of the Romantic Period. While he was immensely popular in the period, his works did not seem to make the cut for today’s Canon. Spohr put forth a large number of pieces of various genres, including fifteen violin concerti (Spohr himself was a violinist), four clarinet concerti, and ten symphonies. In his early symphonies, Spohr adhered closely to Classical style, while in later symphonies such as no.6, the “Historical,” he began to take more chances and experiment with the growing endorsement of historical works (although this particular work would not be well-received). Completed in 1839, this symphony was perhaps his most adventurous, as each movement is orchestrated in a different style—‘Bach-Handel (1720),’ ‘Haydn-Mozart (1780),’ ‘Beethoven (1810),’ and ‘Most Recent (1840).’

Perhaps this retrospective was inspired in part by Mendelssohn’s promotion of pieces of the past in his Historical Concerts at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Regardless of his reasoning, Spohr’s ability to recreate the traits and feel of time periods other than his own is quite remarkable. If I had just been listening to the symphony not knowing the title, I would never have guessed that it was one of Spohr’s works. Spohr’s first three movements, while imitating the styles of the period, are not exact stylistic copies as he uses traits of the Romantic throughout the piece. Each movement sounds as he intends it, though with some passages that feel like quotations. While the first three movements reflect the “backward-looking” of the Romantic, the last movement was viewed by many as ridicule of the direction modern music was going as it jabbed at quotations by another composer of the period. Therefore, none of the movements of this symphony truly reflect the style of Spohr, but are rather Spohr’s interpretations of the music around him.

The “Bach-Handel” movement is introduced by a Largo and contains fugal passages similar to what might have been found in the Well Tempered Clavier, followed by a Grave reminiscent of a pastorale and with several melodic similarities to Messiah, particularly in the duet "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd." The Largo is dominated by string and double reed textures and the melodies are filled with lower neighbor notes and trills. The fugue is rather widely spaced in time, giving the movement a majestic, stately feel. When the piece transitions to the Grave section, the flutes and oboes begin to play a more prominent role, transitioning away from the fugue of Bach to the melody of Handel. Contrasts are obvious in this movement through the transition between weighted, separated melodies and more lyrical, flowing ones, but the texture rarely shifts, nor does the regular phrase structure with the main theme repeated ad nauseum.

The “Haydn-Mozart” movement seems more heavily laden with references to Mozart than Haydn. The tempo indicates Larghetto, and the theme seems to have been drawn from the second movement of Mozart’s Symphony no. 39. The instrumental texture is close to identical, as are certain rhythmic and melodic motifs. For example, a dotted quarter/sixteenth pattern rising a third and then dropping a step pervades both of these movements. Instruments begin to have more exposed parts, with the clarinet (one of Mozart’s favorite instruments[1]) even having a lengthy solo before being joined by the rest of the orchestra. During the development the basses carry a particularly driving series of pedal tone quarter notes under the melody. I would have expected some sort of “Haydn surprise” in a movement including his name, but sadly there were none.

---

[1] Mozart wrote to his father, upon first hearing the instrument in 1778 in the Mannheim orchestra, “Alas, if only we too had clarinets!”

The “Beethoven” movement, set during his “heroic” period and the only one which the composer of honor does not have to share the title of the movement, is a Scherzo that begins with three solo timpani, one more than in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. This enlargement of the performing force seems to fit well with Spohr’s Romantic background but is not exactly faithful to what Beethoven would have done (even being a Romantic composer himself), an excellent example of how Spohr follows the styles of these composers but is not an exact copy. The theme of this movement is most often carried by strings, with staccato winds interjecting. This melody meanders a little outside of the diatonic, reminiscent of the melody of Beethoven’s Third Symphony and ends abruptly with a short, forte chord.

The last movement of this symphony seems tongue-in-cheek. Sprightly melodies are immediately followed by large chords and running scales that seem to not musically approach anything. This certainly shows off the desire for large, flashy music in the Romantic, yet it does not promote any musical effect aside from tawdry attempts to flaunt a large ensemble. The introduction to this movement was evidently a lampoon of the overture to Daniel Auber's new opera La Muette de Portici, which Spohr had conducted fifty times, complete with diminished seventh chord opening (Naxos “About this Recording”). In addition, Spohr’s orchestration adds many distracting percussion instruments, including cymbals, triangle, and side drum. The music critic of the Musical World on April 6, 1840 noted that “we presume Spohr intended to satirize the present French and Italian schools of instrumental writing; and if so, he has succeeded admirably. The audience, however, did not see the joke.” Despite the poor reception of the piece, Spohr remained a relatively popular composer, though this and other failures might have contributed to his rather low-profile status in today’s performances.

This symphony was not truly evocative of a piece by Spohr. While he hides his style within all of the movements and uses his compositional freedom to interpret what those before him have done, none of them truly represent him as a composer. In addition, this piece was not even well-received by audiences since none of the movements showed off Spohr’s talents, but rather was a serious take on the past capped with a joke that was not even appreciated. While Symphony No. 6 may not deserve to be in the Canon, it is certainly an excellent mimicry of the styles of many famous composers and fascinating to listen to just to hear the progression of music. This mimicry excellently reflects the growing desire for historicism in the Romantic period, but the musical effect of the piece as a whole is minimal, despite the historical intentions. While the audience of the period might have enjoyed the first three movements because of these intentions, the fourth movement, which moved away from historical study and into the realm of satire, pushed them too far. Surely, Spohr deserves to have at least a few of his pieces in the ‘Western Music Canon’ instead of being limited to the ‘Clarinet Concerti Canon,’ but the Sixth Symphony is not one of those pieces.