Sic transit gloria mundi – Thus passes worldly glory. Louis Spohr was born in Germany in 1784, and during his lifetime he was one of the most famous musicians in all of Europe, renowned as a great violinist, a distinguished conductor, and an extremely prolific composer. He wrote ten symphonies, ten operas, eighteen violin concertos, four clarinet concertos, and thirty-six string quartets, among dozens of other works, and along the way he found time to teach a couple of hundred violin students,