Scan 8
Musical Courier 1896-09-16: Vol 33 Iss 863, 1896
51 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 9. See the scan on archive.org.
1Louis Spohr's Violin.
3TRULY an instrument of pedigree is this! Illustrious in birth and renowned for its famous owners, it can boast of having been played on by more great artists than any other violin in the world. Have not its strings been caressed by the fingers of the divine Mozart? And has it not—not to mention its various distinguished possessors—responded to the touch of the great Paganini, of De Beriot, Ernst, Lipinski, Mayseder, Molique, David, Ole Bull, Laub, Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski?
5Pray, what would you?
7And the violin is worthy of its enviable career, for it has qualities of supreme worth; yes, it is, in one respect at least, unique—it has the biggest tone of any violin in existence. What stories this violin could tell if it were gifted with the power of speech! Tales of joy, tales of woe and tales of greatness. There is but one other violin of equal interest, and that is Paganini's Guarnerius, that lies untouched in a sealed glass case in the museum at Genoa.
9The Spohr violin, too, is doomed to silence and to idleness. In an old case, in the modest home of the widow of August Kömpel, Spohr's greatest and favorite pupil, in artistic, drowsy little Weimar, lies this precious heirloom, untouched, yet tenderly cared for, content, like the quiet town itself, in the memories of a glorious past. Is it not strange that both of these violins of the two greatest violinists the world has ever seen should be doomed to such a fate?
11Is it not a remarkable fact, also, that Paganini and Spohr, these two artists who represented the supreme heights, the culmination points, of two totally different schools, who achieved world wide fame during their lives, and whose influence on violin playing since their deaths has been tremendous and will be so long as the violin is loved and played—is it not remarkable that they should have been born in the same year, that they should have lived and worked during the same period, rivaling with each other, in fact at times playing in the same city at the same time?
13It is strange, but it was unquestionably a most fortunate circumstance—decree of fate, if you will—for succeeding generations of violin players, for if either of these Titans had lived and worked alone, without the counteracting influence of the other, the violin playing of later years would have been very one-sided in character, excessively extravagant on the one hand, and altogether too conservative, dignified and stiff on the other. For Spohr and Paganini, great though they were, were both very one-sided.
15But to return to the violin. One day last week while in Weimar I visited the widow Kömpel, in company with a few friends, and played on the violin for an hour and a half, testing it thoroughly. I marveled at the volume of tone. It is simply colossal. The violin does not respond easily to the touch; on the contrary, it requires great pressure of the fingers and of the bow, but when this is forthcoming—Himmel, what a tone! It was the ideal instrument for Spohr, whose chief characteristics were a voluminous tone and heavy, long drawn out strokes of the bow. Spohr utterly ignored the lightness and frequency of bowing of the French school. The violin has a label which bears the following inscription:
17Antonius Straduarius Cremonensis,
18Faciebat Anno, 1690.
20The genuineness of the instrument has been questioned; it has, in truth, little resemblance to the Strads of thirty years later, when Stradivarius had reached the zenith of his powers. Spohr himself considered it genuine. All I can say is that Stradivarius, or any other violin maker that ever lived, might well be proud of having produced such an instrument.
22The violin is at present in excellent condition. While in Spohr's possession it once met with a serious accident, and the manner in which it was repaired is worthy of special mention. The master once fell in his room and made a large hole in the top of his violin with his elbow. He was in despair, for it seemed that the instrument could not be repaired in any way except by setting in a piece of wood, and he would not hear of this. Furthermore, none of the well-known violin makers would attempt to repair it; they feared to risk their reputation.
24Finally J. Vauchel d'Offenbach, of Würzburg, a most eccentric individual, undertook it. He began his task in a decidedly original way. He took a piece of the same kind of wood of the size of the hole, picked it to pieces fibre by fibre, and then after softening the fibres in glue water he fitted them into the opening one by one. Day after day he worked at this laborious task with wonderful patience, till the hole was entirely filled up and the violin was as good as ever. It was an extraordinary piece of work. Spohr's astonishment and joy on receiving the violin again so well repaired was boundless.
26It requires a practiced eye to find the place to-day. It is on the right side of the tail-piece, just back of the bridge. The spot is a shade darker than the rest of the top.
28The violin has been in the possession of the Kömpel family since Spohr's death in 1859. It was the master's last request that the violin should come into the hands of his favorite pupil, and that it should not be sold to a wealthy collector. In accordance with this wish Spohr's widow sold it to Kömpel for the exceedingly low price of 3,000 marks ($750), notwithstanding she was offered nearly ten times that amount by English collectors.
30Formerly the violin had been owned by the violinist Regina-Strina-Sacchi-Schlick, of Mantua, who was considered a very fine violinist. It was while she was concertizing in Vienna that Mozart became interested in the violin. He composed a sonata expressly for it (the sonata for violin and piano in B flat), and performed it with the owner of the violin in a public concert at which the Emperor Joseph was present, April 24, 1784. This sonata was written in a great hurry. The violinist did not get her part till the evening before the concert, and Mozart did not have time to write out the piano part at all. At the concert the sonata went remarkably well, though the artists had not rehearsed even once. The emperor sat in his box quite near the piano. He saw that Mozart had sheets of music paper before him on the piano, but he thought he observed by means of his glass that there were no notes on them. After the sonata was finished he requested Mozart to come to him in his box and bring the sonata. Here he discovered that his supposition was correct.
32Mozart had played in public a sonata that he had dashed off in a hurry, of which he had never heard or practiced a note.
34The widow Kömpel cannot be induced to part with the violin. She has been repeatedly offered very large sums for it, but she was not tempted. Neither will she let anyone play upon it in public, and but few in her own home. Last Christmas I called upon her in company with the violinist Willy Burmester, when we both played the violin for two hours. Burmester requested her to let him take it and play on it in his concerts all over Europe, but to no purpose.
36The lady cannot be reproached for being cautious with such a valuable instrument, but it is a great pity that it should lie idle.
38The massive case in which the violin lies is the same one that Spohr carried with him on his concert tours. It bears the inscription "Louis Spohr, Cassel." It will no doubt seem strange to many that the violin should be lying in Weimar, and that the name of Kömpel should be so little known. This may well be marveled at. As the greatest pupil of Spohr Kömpel should have made a great name for himself. That he did not was his own fault. He hid his light under a bushel. He did not care for fame and fortune, for all those things that the average virtuoso strives for.
40From 1861 until his death in 1894 he lived in Weimar, having been induced to settle there by Liszt, and he seldom left the town. In the fifties he played at the same desk with Joachim in the Court Orchestra at Hanover, when that was the best orchestra in the world. Later the city of Munich endeavored to secure him, and in 1868 the position in St. Petersburg that Wieniawski had just left was offered him. But he chose to remain in Weimar. Had he accepted either of these positions his fame and his usefulness would have been far greater.
42Kömpel was considered a better performer than David, who was also a pupil of Spohr, but the latter achieved far greater fame because he settled in Leipsic and had a much greater field of activity.
44Kömpel was the greatest Spohr player of his time. He it was who taught Joachim how to play Spohr so well while they were together in Hanover.
46The above portrait shows Spohr in his sixty-fourth year.
48Arthur M. Abell.
50Carri.—The Messrs. Ferdinand and Hermann Carri, directors of the New York Institute for Violin Playing and School for Piano and Vocal Culture, at 230 East Sixty-second street, who have been spending their summer at Nantucket, Mass., returned to New York and resumed instruction at their school September 15.
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