His sacred work masterpiece. This raised his reputation sky high. With Vanessa Barkowski, Vladamir Baykov, Jorg Durmuller and Anna Korondi. Conducted by Bruno Weil with theRuhr ChorWerk and Cappella Coloniensis.
I. Part 1 - Adoration and Admonition - 00:00
I. Part 1 - Aria and Recitative -14:47
I. Part 1 - Adoration and Admonition - 16:21
I. Part 1 - Christ's Deed of Salvation - 18:12
II. Part 2 - Sinfonia - 33:42
II. Part 2 - Messengers of the Last Judgement - 41:33
II. Part 2 - The Final Judgement on the Living and Dead - 54:29
II. Part 2 - The World's New World - 1:05:18
Die Lezten Dinge is a remarkably original conception - Hauptmann tought it "only too modern". The most immediately strking feature of Die Lezten Dinge is its untity. As in his operas, Spohr used the repetition of musical material as a unifying device. The success of Die lezten Dinge was tremendous. Spohr had been correct to speculate that the time was ripe for oratorio, and he had accurately matched his music to the taste of the day. In May 1826 when he directed it at the Rhenish Music Festival at Dusseldorf it was received with such enthusiasm that the festival had to be prolonged by a day so that it could be performed for a second time. The oratorio's impact in England, after its first performance at the Norwich Festival of 1830, was even more profound, for it was able to do what Jessonda could never have done in England, transforming Spohr virtually overnight from an international composer who was an object of admiration only among connoisseurs and professional musicians into an almost universally acknowledged master of the first rank.
"We doubt whether, any composer now living possesses the same knowledge of the secret affinities between matters of the external world and the invisible world of music or wheter any can find utterance for human passion in music that Spohr. In this he is like Mozart. We again recommend this oratorio to the notice of directors of musical festivals as a good subject well set, calculated to please every person of imagination and taste, and peculiarly adapted to gain fame in this country" Edward Holmes review in The Atlas - 1829-
"The Last Judgement........... We Consider as one of the greatest musical productions of the age. It would be presumptuous in us, having heard it but once, were we to attempt a munute detail of all the beauties of this elaborate work, in which is embodied every passion, sentiment and feeling , and however elevated the name of Spohr may justly be as a composer of the highest class of instrumental music, this sublime oratorio will add immensely to his reputation and henceforth his name will be inserted in the list of those authors whose studies, efforts and genius have been most conspicuously successful in this the noblest branch of art." The Harmonican - 1829
