Louis Spohr's inventive streak is evident in his creation of the double quartet, a novel form that opened the string octet to new textural, antiphonal, and contrapuntal possibilities. However, like many of Spohr's other chamber experiments, his strategies occasionally led him into unintended compositional difficulties, and his results were most successful when he put aesthetic considerations over cleverness. Spohr's showy writing for the first violin, flamboyant and widespread in the Double Quartet No. 1, caused unevenness ...
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Louis Spohr's inventive streak is evident in his creation of the double quartet, a novel form that opened the string octet to new textural, antiphonal, and contrapuntal possibilities. However, like many of Spohr's other chamber experiments, his strategies occasionally led him into unintended compositional difficulties, and his results were most successful when he put aesthetic considerations over cleverness. Spohr's showy writing for the first violin, flamboyant and widespread in the Double Quartet No. 1, caused unevenness in the ensemble's balance and exposed the bareness of the other parts. Aware of this problem, Spohr opted to minimize the violin's role in his next effort, and his Double Quartet No. 2 works well without inordinate displays of virtuosity. In his Double Quartet No. 3, Spohr attempted once more to make a spectacular violin part work, and it does, but only because the other instruments share fully in the repartee. The Double Quartet No. 4 is the most balanced of the series and in terms...
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Add this copy of Spohr: Double Quartets to cart. $7.78, fair condition, Sold by Goodwill rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brooklyn Park, MN, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Hyperion.
Add this copy of Spohr: Double Quartets to cart. $9.99, very good condition, Sold by Priceless Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Urbana, IL, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Hyperion.
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