Spohr's appointment to the directorship of the court theatre at Cassel occurred in the winter of 1822, and he confesses his pleasure in the post, as he believed he could make its fine orchestra one of the most celebrated in Germany. He remained in this position for about thirty years, and during that time Cassel became one of the greatest musical centers of the country. His labors were assiduous, for he had the true tireless German industry, and he soon gave the world his opera of "Jessonda," which was first produced on July 28, 1823, with marked success. "Jessonda" has always kept its hold on the German stage, though it was not received with much favor elsewhere. Another opera, "Der Berg Geist" ("The Mountain Spirit"), quickly followed, the work having been written to celebrate the marriage of the Princess of Hesse with the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. One of his most celebrated compositions, the oratorio "Die Letzten Dinge" ("The Last Judgment"), which is more familiar to English-speaking peoples than any other work of Spohr, was first performed on Good Friday, 1826, and was recognized from the first as a production of masterly excellence. Spohr's ability as a composer of sacred music would have been more distinctly accepted, had it not been that Handel, Haydn, and, in more recent years, Mendelssohn, raised the ideal of the oratorio so high that only the very loftiest musical genius is considered fit to reign in this sphere. The director of the Cassel theatre continued indefatigable in producing works of greater or less excellence, chamber-music, symphonies, and operas. Among the latter, attention may be called to "Pietro Albano" and the "Alchemist," clever but in no sense brilliant works, though, as it became the fashion in Germany to indulge in enthusiasm over Spohr, they were warmly praised at home. The best known of his orchestral works, "Die Weihe der Tone " ("The Power of Sound"), a symphony of unquestionable greatness, was produced in 1832. We are told that Spohr had been reading a volume of poems which his deceased friend Pfeiffer had left behind him, when he alighted on "Die Weihe der Tone," and the words delighted him so much that he thought of using them as the basis of a cantata. But he changed his purpose, and finally decided to delineate the subject of the poem in orchestral composition. The finest of all Spohr's symphonies was the outcome, a work which ranks high among compositions of this class. His toil on the new oratorio of "Calvary" was sadly interrupted by the death of his beloved wife Dorette, who had borne him a large family, and had been his most sympathetic and devoted companion. Spohr was so broken down by this calamity that it was several months before he could resume his labors, and it was because Dorette during her illness had felt such a deep interest in the progress of the work that the desolate husband so soon plucked heart to begin again. When the oratorio was produced on