Did You Know . . . Louis Spohr (1784–1859) Invented the Chin Rest? 

By Robert Markow | From the July/August 2025 issue of Strings

He was also responsible for the incorporation of rehearsal numbers into music. And for initiating a conductor’s use of the baton rather than a roll of paper or a violin bow. Do you delight in a music festival? Again, you have Louis Spohr to thank, as he was the first to conceptualize such an event (the first was at Frankenhausen in 1810), and a campaign to get audiences to keep quiet and pay attention at concerts. 

Did you know that Spohr undertook 53 concert tours, the first at the age of 15? And that his Violin Method served as one of the standards for generations of 19th-century pupils? And that he was a painter? (A creditable self-portrait exists.) 

Beyond all this, he was a violinist on the level of a Paganini who wrote over 300 compositions in every known genre and medium at the time (plus some new ones). Like Beethoven, Spohr wrote nine symphonies (a tenth was left incomplete upon his death). No. 9 was devoted to depicting the four seasons. 

So highly regarded was Spohr across Europe that he was an honorary member of no fewer than 38 music societies. So great was his reputation that his presence at a London Philharmonic concert in 1843 merited the attendance of Queen Victoria, who had not been to a concert in the five years since her coronation.

Quite a man, this Spohr!