court organist, to Kapellmeister in 1716. Court musicians such as Johann Christoph Rödiger felt disappointed with their master's choice. In Prague Stölzel premiered three more operas, several oratorios, masses, and many instrumental compositions. Stölzel was for a short time court Kapellmeister in Bayreuth (1717–18) and in Gera (1719). His opera Diomedes was premiered in 1718 in Bayreuth. Stölzel married with Christiana Dorothea Knauer on 25 May 1719. They had nine sons and one daughter. Three sons died at a young age. On 24 November 1719 Stölzel assumed the position of Kapellmeister at the court in Gotha, where he worked under the dukes Frederick II and Frederick III of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg until his death in 1749. Stölzel initiated several theoretical works about music, but only one of these was published during his lifetime: a treatise on the composition of canons, of which 400 copies were printed in 1725. In 1720 Prince Günther I succeeded his father in Sondershausen. He too regretted his father's choice for the court Kapellmeister. He asked Stölzel to provide music for the court chapel. However, Stölzel did not comply to this request until 1730, when Freißlich was leaving for Danzig (where he was appointed in 1731). Until Günther's death in 1740 Stölzel provided music for the Sondershausen court, which included four cycles of church cantatas, other sacred music, and secular music such as serenatas. In 1739 Stölzel became a member of Lorenz Christoph Mizler's . As a member of this Society he composed a cantata and wrote a treatise on the recitative, which was published as Abhandlung vom Recitativ in the 20th century. The last two years of his life Stölzel suffered from ill health, becoming feeble-minded ("im Haupte schwach"). Some of Stölzel's manuscripts were sold to cover expenses. He died 27 November 1749, less than 60 years old. Mizler printed Stölzel's obituary as second of three (of which Johann Sebastian Bach's was the third), in the fourth volume of his , the organ of the Society of Musical Sciences. Compositions According to an 18th-century source Stölzel would have composed eight double cantata cycles. Stölzel composed twelve complete annual cycles of sacred cantatas, which amounts to 1,358 cantatas. 1,215 of these are at least partially extant, 605 surviving with music. Additionally, Stölzel set cantatas to secular texts. Among his extant compositions are a Brockes Passion of 1725, two Christmas Oratorios, made of cantatas, and a Deutsche Messe (German