n this connection Spohr tells the following humorous story:--

"One of the solo-singers alone, who sang the part of Satan, did not
give me satisfaction. The part, which was written with a powerful
instrumentation, I gave, by the advice of Bischoff, to a village
schoolmaster in the neighborhood of Gotha who was celebrated throughout
the whole district for his colossal bass voice. In power of voice he
had indeed quite sufficient to outroar a whole orchestra; but in
science and in music he could by no means execute the part in a
satisfactory manner. I taught and practised him in the part myself, and
took great pains to assist him a little. But without much success; for
when the day of public trial came, he had totally forgotten every
instruction and admonition, and gave such loose to his barbarian voice
that he first of all frightened the auditory, and then set it in roars
of laughter."

It is clear from Spohr's remarks that he was satisfied with the choruses
and fugues, but not with the solo parts of Jesus and Mary, which were in
the florid cantata style of that day. He subsequently determined to
re-write them; but "when about to begin," he says, "it seemed to me as
though I could no longer enter into the spirit of the subject, and so it
remained undone. To publish the work as it was, I could not make up my
mind. Thus in later years it has lain by without any use being made of
it."

Thirteen years afterwards he wrote "Die letzten Dinge," now so well known
as "The Last Judgment." He says in one of his letters,--

"In the same year [1825] Councillor Rochlitz, the editor of the
'Leipsic Musical Journal,' offered me the text of an oratorio, 'Die
letzten Dinge,' to compose for, which I received with great pleasure,
as my previous attempt in that style of art, 'Das juengste Gericht,' by
no means pleased me any longer, and therefore I had not once been
disposed to perform a single number of it at the meeting of our
Society.... The whole work was finished by Good Friday [1826], and then
first performed complete in the Lutheran Church. It was in the evening,
and the church was lighted up. My son-in-law, Wolff, who had been long
in Rome, proposed to illuminate the church as at Rome on Good Friday,
with lights disposed overhead in the form of a cross, and carried out
his idea. A cross fourteen feet long, covered with silver-foil and hung
with six hundred glass lamps, was suspend