AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Conductor
• Early Romantic
• Instrumentalist

(Loo’-es Shpôr) 1784–1859 German composer, violinist and conductor Spohr was a prolific composer of instrumental music and also wrote operas that foreshadow Wagner’s leitmotif technique. He first studied in his native Brunswick, and Mozart soon became his idol. He was a virtuoso violinist and between 1807 and 1821 went on many tours to the major European cities with his wife ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic

Appreciation of Berwald’s work, including many first performances, had to wait until the twentieth century. His style was rooted in the harmonic language of Beethoven, Hummel and Spohr, although his best works (such as the Sinfonie singulière, ‘Singular Symphony’, 1845) show melodic freshness and originality of form. He is one of the most important and individual ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic

Liederkreis, op. 39; Frauenliebe und-leben, op. 42; Dichterliebe, op. 48 Genoveva, opera (1847–49); other choruses and partsongs Introduction | Early Romantic | Classical Personalities | Louis Spohr | Early Romantic | Classical ...

• Styles & Forms
• Classical
• Early Romantic

strings and woodwinds) were used to signify the presence of spirits, while folk-like melodies and horn calls represented peasant life. The use of recurring motifs was further developed by Spohr and Marschner, who in his Der Vampyr also explored chromatic harmony, varied orchestration and a type of heightened vocal style approximating speech. The operas of this period effectively ...

• The Voice
• Classical
• Early Romantic

own national operatic voice. Mozart had written an opera to a German libretto (Die Zauberflöte, much imitated in the 1790s), but had not really created a German operatic style. Spohr, Weber, Nicolai and Marschner cultivated a dramatic vein that drew more heavily on German themes, on folklore and rustic scenes; their operas have a Germanic quality quite ...

• Inside the Music
• Classical
• Early Romantic

large that any attempt to play them directly was abandoned and each was fitted with a padded cover and keywork to operate it. String Instrument Modifications Around 1820 the composer Spohr invented the chin rest, and as a result the violin was played tucked in at the side of the chin, with the head held slightly forwards and to ...