st 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
Good Friday, 1835, Spohr records in his diary: "The thought that my wife
did not live to listen to its first performance sensibly lessened the
satisfaction I felt at this my most successful work." This oratorio was
not given in England till 1839, at the Norwich festival, Spohr being
present to conduct it. The zealous and narrow-minded clergy of the day
preached bitterly against it as a desecration, and one fierce bigot
hurled his diatribes against the composer, when the latter was present
in the cathedral. A journal of the day describes the scene: "We now see
the fanatical zealot in the pulpit, and sitting right opposite to him
the great composer, with ears happily deaf to the English tongue, but
with a demeanor so becoming, with a look so full of pure good-will, and
with so much humility and mildness in the features, that his countenance
alone spoke to the heart like a good sermon. Without intending it, we
make a comparison, and can not for a moment doubt in which of the two
dwelt the spirit of religion which denoted the true Christian."

Spohr had been two years a widower when he became enamored of one of
the daughters of Court Councilor Pfeiffer. He tells us he had long been
acquainted "with the high and varied intellectual culture of the two
sisters, and so I became fully resolved to sue for the hand of the
elder, Marian