Weber’s masses, like many others of this early period, are now seldom given, though there is much good writing in them. The one in E-flat major, known as the _Jubelmesse_, was performed at Dresden in 1818, which was the fiftieth year of the reign of the king of Saxony, and, as it was an occasional work, it embodied the pomp and importance of this festal event. The one in G, written a year later for a family festival in the King’s household, was more intimate in character. Weber wrote to Rochlitz: ‘I mean to keep before me the idea of a happy family-party kneeling in prayer and rejoicing before the Lord as His children.’ Both works manifest a devotional spirit. VII Hector Berlioz’ ‘Requiem,’ written during 1836-37 at the request of the French government, was performed Dec. 5, 1837, in the Invalides in Paris at the memorial services for General Damrémont and the soldiers who had perished in the storming of Constantina in Algiers, the government paying the composer four thousand francs for the work. The original purpose of the commission, however, was to have been a memorial for those who had fallen in the July Revolution of 1830. Berlioz had completed his work and rehearsals had begun, when the Minister of the Interior who had commissioned Berlioz was succeeded by one who was of a different mind and the July festival took place without music. But the taking of Constantina offered Berlioz a second chance for his work. Berlioz arranged performances of it in several cities of Germany, but its wide hearing came only recently. The work is colossal, but so realistic, so almost savage in its coloring that the hearer is fairly awed. It is also so complicated and makes such tremendous demands upon both the orchestra and the singers, that only few organizations can give it adequate presentation and then only by a large addition of instruments to the full orchestra and by arranging them in groups in various parts of the auditorium. The directions call for four brass bands and sixteen drums in addition to the regular orchestra. Extraordinary and often well-nigh impossible demands are made upon the human voice, but, notwithstanding these drawbacks, it remains the composer’s most mature work, full of originality and coloring.