Friends of the Library make purchases of rare Louis Spohr manuscripts possible

Music manuscripts

Acquired was a sheet with 23 measures from the final part of the first movement as well as the beginning of the Scherzo from the 2nd Piano Trio (op. 123) from 1842, which deviates slightly from the version of the first printing. The manuscript sheet had been given away a few years after Spohr's death by his widow to the Hamburg pianist Emil Krause, who had a firm place in Hamburg musical life as a music teacher and critic as well as an editor of piano music and with successful compositions of his own. Krause gave the autograph to the Hamburg pianist Christiane Orth in June 1915.

Signature: 2° Ms. Mus. 1517
ORKA: https://orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image/1626425425793/1/LOG_0000/

In addition to the already existing correspondence between Louis Spohr and the English librettist Edward Taylor, comprising more than one hundred letters, a sheet with the first draft of a tenor aria from the oratorio "Der Fall Babylons" (WoO 63), written in early 1840, was acquired. This composition goes back to the contact between Spohr and the librettist Edward Taylor, who offered him an English libretto for "Babylon" when Spohr performed his oratorio "The Last Things" in Taylor's English translation at the music festival in Norwich in the fall of 1839. Since Spohr did not understand English, the Kassel lawyer and publicist Friedrich Oetker prepared a German translation, which Spohr based his composition on. In the summer of 1840, Spohr sent the completed oratorio to Taylor, who then produced an English back translation. While the German version was first performed in a small circle in Kassel on Good Friday 1842, the actual premiere in English did not take place until the fall of 1842 at the Norwich Music Festival.

Signature: 2° Ms. Mus. 1515
ORKA: https://orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image/1635405568851/1/LOG_0000/

Letters

The letter to Karl Joseph Kinderfreund, composer and music teacher in Prague, which has now been acquired, contains Spohr's reply to a letter by Kinderfreund that has been in the library's collection for some time. In it, Kinderfreund requested information about Heinrich Herdtmann, who had applied for a teaching position that had become available at Kinderfreund's conservatory at short notice. Spohr replied on November 13, 1841 with this letter of recommendation for his former student.

Signature: 4° Ms. hist. litt. 15[523
ORKA: https://orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image/1625213341117/1/LOG_0000/

Spohr's letter of March 27, 1856, to the young Bernhard Scholz is also the counterletter to a letter from a smaller correspondence already in the Kassel collection. Spohr was responding to Scholz's request that he be allowed to dedicate to him his first sonata for violin and piano (op. 3), which was to appear in print, after the latter, on Spohr's advice, had spent a year intensively studying counterpoint and composition (in Berlin). Bernhard Scholz was the son of a wealthy Mainz publisher and printer who had resisted his father's desire to take over his business. He had come into contact with Spohr in 1855 and had sent him songs he had composed himself, which Spohr had received very positively.

Signature: 4° Ms. hist. litt. 15[524
ORKA: https://orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image/1625213484434/1/LOG_0000/

Part of an altogether very extensive correspondence between Spohr and the composer and music patron Wilhelm Speyer, who was several years younger, and which extended over more than four decades, is Spohr's letter of May 16, 1838, which is rich in content. In it, Spohr announced the sending of the score and parts of his recently composed "Vater unser" (WoO 70) after the poem by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, which he had reworked for a larger instrumentation for the Singers' Festival in Frankfurt (1838). At the same time, Spohr requested in this letter the score and orchestral parts of 'Paulus' from the Cäcilienverein in Frankfurt for a renewed performance for the benefit of the orchestra widows' fund at Whitsun, after a first performance of the oratorio on Good Friday 1838 in the Kassel Garrison Church had met with great approval.

Signature: 4° Ms. hist. litt. 15[522
ORKA: https://orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image/1625213180436/1/LOG_0000/

First print

Also from 1842 is a very rare French first printing of the "Sonate concertante. op. 115" for harp and piano or violin and cello in G major. This is one of the duos originally written around 1810 for harp and violin, but not published until 1840/41 in Hamburg, which Spohr composed for concert performances with his first wife Doretta, who died in 1834.

Signature: 2° Mus. 1516
ORKA: https://orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image/1634723660442/1/LOG_0000/

All originals have already been digitized and can be searched worldwide and free of charge via the online archive ORKA of the UB Kassel.

Louis Spohr

Louis Spohr (born 1784) was appointed Hofkapellmeister in Kassel in 1822 after permanent engagements as violinist and conductor in Braunschweig, Gotha, Vienna, Frankfurt and Dresden as well as numerous concert tours through Europe. He worked in Kassel until his death in 1859, and within a very short time he shaped Kassel's musical theater into one of the best in Central Europe. He also made significant contributions throughout Europe as a composer and violin teacher. In addition, Spohr provided essential impulses for Kassel's civic music culture: he founded various choirs and intensively promoted the performance of chamber music in (semi-)private settings.

Contact:
Dr. Brigitte Pfeil
Kassel University Library
Head of Department IV: Regional Library, Head of Special Collections
Phone +49 561 804-7344
pfeil@bibliothek.uni-kassel.de