A work of literary
history of which I am rather fond is Robert Birley’s Sunk
Without Trace: Some Forgotten Masterpieces Reconsidered
(1962), in which Birley considers the merits (or otherwise)
of some works which were regarded very highly indeed in their
day, but which now find almost no readers and have no place
in the established literary canon. Works like, for example,
Edward Young’s Night Thoughts, published in the 1740s,
of which both Goethe and Herder were great admirers and which
Boswell (in his Life of Johnson) declared to be “the
grandest and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced”.
Spohr offers a not
altogether dissimilar case. In his lifetime his reputation stood
on a par with that of figures such as Schubert, Weber, Schumann
and Berlioz. Not many, I suspect, would put him in quite that
company these days. By 1930, Harvey Grace was writing (in Cobbett’s
Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music) that “very little”
of the “great mass” of music written by Spohr was now to be
heard, partly, he suggested as “a reaction against the immense
vogue of his music during his lifetime and for nearly a generation
afterwards”. He expressed the belief, however, that “there are
few composers so dead as to be beyond revival, and it is inconceivable
that so fecund and skilful a writer as Spohr should not sooner
or later enjoy again a measure of popularity”.
Certainly Spohr’s
fortunes – at least insofar as recordings go – have improved
markedly in recent years. A range of his music is now available
and its merits have been advocated quite widely. Yet I’m not
that the tag “forgotten masterpieces” quite seems merited,
even for two attractive chamber works such as the ones on this
present disc. Harvey Grace perhaps put his finger on Spohr’s
limitations (though he was specifically writing of Spohr as
a composer of string quartets) when, in that same essay, he
observed as follows:
“One feels […] that
there is a want of another quality that distinguishes the best
chamber music – intensity both of mind and emotion. There is
abundance of pleasant sound and highly effective writing, but
the composer rarely gets below the surface of things. In this
connexion his own attitude towards the quartets of Beethoven
is highly significant. He was one of the first to acclaim that
composer’s early examples, but his admiration stopped short
at the op. 18 quartets!”
That “intensity
of mind and emotion” is not, I think, to be found here either
– though there is, indeed, an “abundance of pleasant sound and
highly effective writing”.
Forty years separates
the two works persuasively played by Ensemble 360 on this well-recorded
disc. The Nonet of 1813 never, I think, entirely disappeared
from the concert stage and largely escaped the relative oblivion
into which much of its composer’s other work was thrown for
some time. It isn’t, as I have implied, a work which digs very
deep. It is beautifully scored, for an unusual combination of
instruments: violin, viola, cello, double-bass, flute, oboe,
clarinet, horn and bassoon. The four movements (allegro-scherzo:
allegro-adagio-finale:vivace) are nicely distinguished one from
another, though the four note motif which opens the work reappears
more than once in later movements, so there is unity too. It’s
an essentially relaxed piece, which at times has a serenade-like
quality. I have heard performances which brought out more real
sadness than Ensemble 360 do, but on the whole I prefer their
concentration on the elegance and charm of the work, tinged
with a slight melancholy in places.
The Septet was written
when Spohr was only six months away from his 70th
birthday. According to the booklet notes by Keith Warsop (Chairman
of the Spohr Society of Great Britain) was composed after Spohr
had, in 1853, heard a concert performance in London of the Nonet.
It displays, throughout, an astute ear for the blending of instrumental
tones (as do these performers). There is more explicit emotional
expression in the later work, though the classical models which
Spohr so loved still dictate his larger ways of proceeding.
The piano is beautifully integrated into the ensemble – otherwise
made up of flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin and cello.
The second movement, headed ‘Pastorale: Larghetto’, is particularly
lovely, Spohr’s lifelong love of Mozart is everywhere evident,
though the inherited musical language is extended by a much
more chromatic harmonic sense. Though the Nonet is the better
known work, I have found this Septet growing on me as I have
listened to it.
One needs to approach
Spohr, I suspect, with appropriate expectations if one is to
enjoy his work, highly competent and fluent as it undoubtedly
is. The depth and innerness, the engagement with the very nature
of the human condition, that one expects from the greatest composers
(i.e. from composers such as those with whom Spohr’s name was
linked in his own lifetime) is not, in my experience, to be
found in his work. It is salutary to remember that Spohr, in
his Autobiography described the fourth movement of Beethoven’s
Ninth as “so monstrous and tasteless […] that I cannot understand
how a genius like Beethoven could have written it”. That says
something about the limitations of Spohr’s own musical world,
something we should bear in mind when approaching his work.
Do so, thus avoiding inappropriate demands, and there’s much
to enjoy. That is certainly the case in these intelligent, well-balanced
performances, performances which communicate a real affection
for the music and which resist the temptation to over-inflate
it.
Glyn Pursglove
Ensemble 360:
Sarah Bitlloch (violin)1,2; Martin Saving (viola)1;
Marie Bitlloch (cello)1,2; Laurčne Durantel (double bass)1;
Guy Eshed (flute)1,2; Adrian Wilson (oboe)1;
Matthew Hunt (clarinet)1,2; Benjamin Hudson (bassoon)1,2;
Naomi Atherton (French horn)1,2; Tim Horton (piano)2
