music, for a period of forty years or more, proves how deep was his conviction of his own powers.  Indeed, he half confesses himself that he is only willing to be rated a little less than Beethoven.  Spohr was singularly meager, for the most part, in musical ideas and freshness of melody, but he was a profound master of the orchestra; and in that variety and richness of resources which give to tone-creations the splendor of color, which is one of the great charms of instrumental music, Spohr is inferior only to Wagner among modern symphonists.  Spohr’s more pretentious works are a singular union of meagerness of idea with the most polished richness of manner; but, in imagination and thought, he is far the inferior of those whose knowledge of treating the orchestra and contrapuntal skill could not compare with his.  There are more vigor and originality in one of Schubert’s greater symphonies than in all the multitudinous works of the same class ever written by Spohr.  In Spohr’s compositions for the violin as a solo instrument, however, he stands unrivaled, for here his true genre as a man of creative genius stamps itself unmistakably.

Before the coming of Spohr violin music had been illustrated by a succession of virtuosos, French and Italian, who, though melodiously charming, planned in their works and execution to exhibit the effects and graces of the players themselves instead of the instrument.  Paganini carried this tendency to its most remarkable and fascinating extreme, but Spohr founded a new style of violin playing, on which the greatest modern performers who have grown up since his prime have assiduously modeled themselves.  Mozart had written solid and simple concertos in which the performer was expected to embroider and finish the composer’s sketch.  This required genius and skill under instant command, instead of merely phenomenal execution.  Again, Beethoven’s concertos were so written as to make the solo player merely one of the orchestra, chaining him in bonds only to set him free to deliver the cadenza.  This species of self-effacement does not consort with the purpose of solo playing, which is display, though under that display there should be power, mastery, and resource of thought, and not the trickery of the accomplished juggler.  Spohr in his violin music most felicitously accomplished this, and he is simply incomparable in his compromise between what is severe and classical, and what is suave and delightful, or passionately exciting.  In these works the musician finds nerve, sparkle, elan, and brightness combined with technical charm and richness of thought.  Spohr’s unconscious and spontaneous force in this direction was the direct outcome of his remarkable power as a solo player, or, more properly, gathered its life-like play and strength from the latter fact.  It may be said of Spohr that, as Mozart raised opera to a higher standard, as Beethoven uplifted the ideal of the orchestra, as Clementi laid a solid foundation for piano-playing, so Spohr’s creative force as a violinist and writer for the violin has established the grandest school for this instrument, to which all the foremost contemporary artists acknowledge their obligations.