Conventional wisdom tells us that we stop
listening to a work when it no longer has anything to say. Though Ludwig Spohr once rivaled Beethoven
in popularity, his works are seldom—if ever—encountered today (though they
should be). The answer for this is
simple on the surface: Beethoven aggressively reshaped the modern orchestra
into a form the Romantics could play around with, but never entirely rival,
whereas Spohr merely composed in the shadow of Mozart and Weber, without doing
anything entirely new or striking. So
we go on playing the same few Beethoven symphonies in concert and never think
about poor old Spohr, who composed a curious symphony (No.6) where each
movement is in the style of a different musical era—Handel/Bach, Mozart/Haydn,
a Beethoven scherzo, and a finale that mocks Italian opera conventions. Worth a revival, eh? In general, certain works stick with the
public while others fall into oblivion.
Yet worth alone cannot account for this, since you could fill every
concert hall in the world (and thousands of cds) with forgotten
masterpieces. Sometimes it’s as simple
as a distinctive name, like the “Surprise Symphony” of Haydn (one of the few of
his 104 symphonies that is regularly played), or some extra-musical hook that
holds our attention like Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and its
Gothic-inspired, Goyaseque program. In
the 20th century, without marketing, you simply don’t have a
product. Yet I have to side with
Stravinsky that music is music, and no matter how many Shakespearean heroes or
heroines you describe in the music, it lives or dies by the music alone. This is all preface to a great composer who
is often omitted from musical histories entirely—especially here in the
States. He’s a composer who doesn’t
sell himself well, doesn’t try to ingratiate himself with the audience—and yet,
composes vibrant, melodic early 20th century Romantic music that
anyone with a fondness for Tchaikovsky, Mahler, or Vaughan-Williams could
enjoy.
