In the same year Rochlitz, editor of the Leipsic _Music Journal_, offered
him the text of the oratorio, "The Last Judgment," and he set to work on
it at once. The oratorio was produced in the Lutheran church of Cassel,
on Good Friday, Mar. 25, 1826, and made a deep impression. In 1827, he
produced another opera, "Pietro von Albano," which in spite of Meyerbeer's
enthusiastic praise, had little success. In 1831, he finished his "Violin
School," a book of instruction which is still held in esteem though not
regarded as the best. In 1832, political disturbances, in which Spohr
played the radical and offended the Elector, interrupted the opera
performances at Cassel for a long time, and the artist devoted his time
to oratorio and instrumental composition. In 1832 he wrote his most noted
symphony, "The Consecration of Tones," and in 1834 he was at work on his
"Calvary," which was produced at Cassel on Good Friday, 1835. He went
to England a second time in 1839, to conduct "Calvary" at the Norwich
Festival. The success of the work was so great that he was commissioned to
write "The Fall of Babylon" (the book by Edward Taylor) for the Norwich
Festival of 1842. In 1840 he conducted a festival at Aix-la-Chapelle, and
in 1842 he produced Wagner's "Der Fliegende Holländer" at Cassel.
He had heard much in its praise from Dresden, and having read the work was
at once pleased with it. In writing to a friend he said: "It interests
me, nevertheless, in the highest degree, for it is written apparently
with true inspiration--and unlike so much of the modern opera music,
does not display in every bar the striving after effect, or effort to
please. There is a great deal of the fanciful there-in; a noble conception
throughout; it is well-written for the singer; enormously difficult, it
is true, and somewhat overcharged in the instrumentation, but full of new
effects, and will assuredly, when it once comes to be performed in the
greater space of the theatre, be thoroughly clear, and intelligible....
I think I am so far correct in my judgment, when I consider Wagner as
the most gifted of all our dramatic composers of the present time." This
opinion of Spohr's is creditable to his judgment as a musician and his
generosity as a man. He worked hard and gave a performance which pleased
the public. He wrote to Wagner of the success of his work and received
from the young composer one of his characteristic letters of gratitude.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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