Louis Spohr

SPOHR, Louis. b. Braunschweig, 5 April 1784; d. Kassel, 22 October 1859. Though his middle-class family initially opposed a career for him in music, his talent as a violinist established employment for him, first in the Brunswick (Braunschweig) court (from 1799), then as a touring performer in Germany and later as Konzertmeister in Gotha. Indeed, throughout his life he was to enjoy an enviable reputation as a violin virtuoso, as composer of 15 violin concertos (the eighth being a highly original form ‘in modo di scena cantante’) and the author of the Violinschule, a method which remained an important text well into the 20th century. From 1811, with the first performances of his First...