Carl Maria von Weber

“ One day a famous composer, named Carl von Weber, was walking in Berlin in company with his young friend and pupil, Jules Benedict, when the pair observed a slightly-built youth of about twelve years of age, with long, dark curls and bright, dark eyes, advancing towards them. ”

“ This was a Fräulein von Belonda, maid of honour to the Duchess of Würtemberg, who took a deep interest in Carl, and persuaded the duke to make him musical director. The continual successes of the French armies overrunning Europe forbade the duke to keep up his retinue of artists. But he secured Weber a post at Stuttgart as private secretary to his brother, Ludwig, another younger brother of the King of Würtemberg, a monster of corpulence, who had to have his dining-table made crescent-wise that he might get near enough to eat. ”

“ One of his pupils, Fräulein von Belonde, was lady-in-waiting to the wife of Duke Eugene of Wirtemberg, then living at Schloss Carlsruhe in Silesia, where he kept up a great deal of music. The lady's influence procured for Weber the title of Musik-Intendant, which would, it was hoped, be a help to him on his tour, but that prospect having been destroyed by the war, the Duke invited Weber to Schloss Carlsrühe. Here he found not only a refuge for himself, his father, and an aunt, but a most desirable atmosphere for the cultivation of his art. ”

“ These choruses for men were sung throughout the Fatherland, as they still are sung.
But from the height of glory to which he was now borne, as the living voice of the nation, he was dragged back to the depths by the little hand and the little finger-nails of Caroline, who could be jealous enough to suspect that not all the adoration Von Weber was receiving from the women of Berlin was pure and impersonal patriotism.
Von Weber had from the first insisted that no marriage of theirs could have hope of success, unless she left the stage. ”

“ His voluminous correspondence with his wife was the only tie left to Weber; and nothing can be more touching than these letters, amounting in all to fifty-three, in which the sufferer was always trying to conceal, as far as he could, his sufferings; the anxious woman left behind, always repressing her own bitter anguish lest it should increase the other's sorrow."
Carl had been lured to London by reports of the enormous craze of the whole people over his work. ”

“ Weber knew that his days were numbered. A model husband and father, the thought of his wife and children was never absent from his mind; to provide for them to the utmost of his power was not only his most sacred duty, but his highest happiness. No one can fail to be touched by the tenderness and devotion which breathe in the letters to his wife, many of which are printed by his sons in the biography. After quitting Stuttgart, he had regulated his affairs in the most exemplary manner. He lived very comfortably in Dresden, and was able even to afford himself small luxuries. ”

“ From the age of sixteen to eighteen he was kapellmeister at the theatre in Breslau. After some two years of uncertainty and rather fast life he became private secretary to the Duke Ludwig of Württemberg. His life became faster. He became involved in debts. Worse, he became involved in intrigue. The king was suspicious. Weber was arrested and thrown into prison. He was cleared of the charges against him, but was banished from the kingdom. Realizing that the way of the transgressor is hard, Weber now devoted himself to serious living and the making of music. ”

“ On April 1, 1822, he was appointed one of the organists of the Chapel Royal in the room of Charles Knyvett, deceased. In 1824 he accompanied Charles Kemble to Germany to engage Weber to compose an opera for Covent Garden, and when Weber came to England in 1826 to bring out his 'Oberon' he was the guest of Sir George Smart, in whose house he died on June 5. It was mainly by the exertions of Sir George Smart and Sir Julius Benedict that the statue of Weber at Dresden was erected, the greater part of the subscriptions having been collected in England. ”

“ In the youth of Germany, especially in the students, his songs produced a sort of divine intoxication. Part of Weber's summer vacation in 1814 was passed in Berlin. Prussia was leading in the struggle to throw off the yoke of Napoleon, and Weber drank daily of the soma-juice in Körner's "Lyre and Sword." On his return trip to Prague he visited his old friend the Duke Emil August at his castle Gräfen-Tonna. From this old feudal pile he sent his settings of "Lützow's wilde Jagd" and "Das Schwertlied" to his love in Prague. The world has never ceased to marvel at the fire of those settings ”

“ Weber's natural way of working was not to develop continuously, but to proceed from one strong contrast to another. His musical ideas are seldom adapted for thematic treatment, being always full of meaning, but with few capacities of development. The instant one idea is given out decisively it calls up another absolutely opposed to it. Illustrations of this may be found in the opening of the Rübezahl overture, as well as in the E♭ movement of the Allegro in that to 'Der Freischütz.' This method of progression by continual contrasts is undoubtedly the sign-manual of Weber's dramatic genius ”

“ But personal dislikes never lasted with Spohr. He could distinguish between a man and his work, and was always a loyal friend to Weber.
The Duke's younger brother, Prince Friedrich, an admirer of Italian music, had brought a singing-master back with him from Italy, and often had Weber to go through Italian operas with him. He had a good tenor voice, and for him Weber composed an Italian scena ed aria, with chorus, from an opera 'Ines de Castro,' performed at a court-concert on Dec. 17. ”

“ Courts and princes had done their best to ruin Weber, but to his lasting credit he came unhurt from the ordeal. After such trying experiences he began a new life. He was no longer a parasite, dancing attendance in the antechambers of royalty, but a musician, enthusiastic for his art and eager to perfect himself in all that could assist the development of his genius. He himself realized what an escape he had had. In his diary at the close of 1810 he wrote: "God has sent me many sorrows and disappointments, but he has also thrown me with good people, who have made life worth living. ”

“ At the joint expense of the Prussian government and of his patron von Altenstein, a musician, he undertook a tour through Holland, France, and Italy, in order to report on the condition of music in those countries. On his return he was commissioned to draw up a scheme for a Prussian national Conservatoire, but at the same time was offered posts at the Hague and at Dresden. The latter he accepted, replacing Marschner at the opera, where he laboured hard, producing both German and Italian operas. In 1827 he succeeded C. M. von Weber as conductor of the German Opera at Dresden. ”

“ WEBER, OTTO (1832–1888) , painter, son of Wilhelm Weber, a merchant of Berlin, was born in that city on 17 Oct. 1832. He studied under Professor Steffeck, and was also much influenced by Eugen Krüger. He became a very skilful painter of landscapes and animals, working both in oil and watercolours, and his pictures were much admired in Paris, where he resided for some years and was awarded medals at the Salon in 1864 and 1869. On the outbreak of the Franco-German war in 1870, Weber left France, and, after a stay of two years in Rome, came to London, where he settled. ”

“ On a trip to Heidelberg he made the acquaintance of Alexander von Dusch, a brother-in-law of Gottfried Weber, and a cello-player of great taste, who after finishing his studies at Easter, 1810, came to settle in Mannheim. The three friends spent a few happy weeks in lively intellectual intercourse, and in April Weber moved to Darmstadt, where Vogler had been living since 1807. Here he met his friends Gänsbacher and Meyerbeer from Berlin. Weber did not return to the old relations of master and pupil with Vogler, but sought to profit by intercourse with him. ”

“ The constrained attitudes of harp-playing were bad for her health; so in later concerts she played the pianoforte in duets with violin which her husband produced with his usual prompt facility. After a transitory visit to Paris, Spohr returned to Germany and settled for a time in Dresden, where German and Italian opera were flourishing side by side under the direction of Weber and Morlacchi. Spohr could not appreciate Weber's genius; nevertheless Weber recommended him strongly to the elector of Hesse Cassel as Kapellmeister. ”

“ The Duke took great pleasure in his society, but, having at the time many claims on his time, invited Weber to return in the autumn and make a longer stay. In Gotha Weber met Spohr, who since 1805 had been Concertmeister—the court had then no opera—and had married in 1806 Dorette Scheidler, a harpist, and daughter of Madame Scheidler, the court-singer. Spohr had not retained a very favourable impression of Weber's music at Stuttgart, but received him in true brotherly fashion. ”

“ A fresh access of popularity came to him in Prague as a consequence of the performance of his great patriotic cantata, "Kampf und Sieg," in 1815; but Weber felt that he was justified in seeking for a position more worthy of his fame, ad in the course of the following year sent in his resignation as kapellmeister. By good fortune the corresponding post in the opera at Dresden fell vacant just at this time. The director of the Opera House was very anxious to establish German opera there in place of what had usually occupied the boards, and in Weber he found the very man to carry out such a plan. ”

“ The devotion of his friends, his happy family relations, the success of his published works, conspired to make Weber cheerful and joyous beyond his wont, for he was naturally of a melancholy and serious turn, disposed to look at life from its tragic side. ”

“ Nowadays the opera is neglected, but we often hear the overture. It is to be noted that the overtures to each of Weber's operas contain the leading themes and melodies of the operas themselves, showing with what skill the artist wrought. When Weber's widow presented the original score of "Der Freischütz" to the Royal Library in Berlin, it was found there was not a single erasure or correction in the whole work.
On June 18, 1821, came the first performance of Weber's masterpiece, "Der Freischütz." ”

“ A man loving freedom from restraint as he did, would have found it very hard to carry on his work with the cheerfulness and elasticity of spirit so remarkable in him, if he had not had a constant spring of happiness and refreshment in married life. His union with Caroline Brandt took place at Prague Nov. 4, 1817. On their wedding tour the young couple gave concerts at Darmstadt and Giessen, appeared in Gotha before the Duke, and then went home to Dresden, which they reached Dec. 20.
To the early years of his work in Dresden belong most of Weber's compositions d'occasion. ”

“ It was in Dresden that Weber made the acquaintance of Johann Friedrich Kind, whose literary ability and intimate knowledge of the stage strongly recommended him to Weber as a collaborator. In casting about for an operatic subject, the composer came upon the forgotten sketch of "Der Freischütz." Kind was delighted with the story, and in two months delivered over to Weber a complete libretto, which elicited a ready response from the musician. From this time until the summer of 1820 the composition of this opera was Weber's chief thought. ”

“ His objections were, however, overcome, and in 1816 Weber accepted the important post that was offered to him. In the next year he was married to Caroline Brandt, a famous singer, the modesty and innocence of whose character had acted as a charm in exorcising the effect of a previous regrettable entanglement of Weber's. The young couple, whose happiness seemed unclouded, took up their abode in Dresden, where they soon became universally popular. ”

“ Helmholtz, the great physicist, is a Kantian, as also is Wundt, the chief of the school, who declares that physiology can account for the inferior but not for the superior faculties of the human mind; Fechner, the discoverer of the law that bears his name, is an illuminate far more spiritual than materialistic; and Weber is a pure physicist, indifferent as between metaphysical schools. Thus, not one of the most authoritative masters of the new science in Germany is a materialist. ”

“ In talking of Weber, people have in their minds, as a rule, only the last period of his life, beginning with 'Der Freischütz,' and ending with 'Oberon,' but from that point of view the work becomes too prominent, and the man of too little importance. As a man his versatile gifts made more effect in the first half of his artistic career than in the second. His artistic wanderings gave the keynote to the ideal life of Germany at that period, and for the first time rounded it off, so to speak, into a full chord. ”

“ For him, therefore, a fine ensemble is the prime necessity.' It had been so much the habit hitherto in Dresden for society to look to the Court, and mould its tastes in accordance with those set in fashion from above, that it was almost an impossibility for a Court official to talk about his work as if he were in any sense personally responsible for it, or wished to be considered the head of his own institution. People were aware that Weber had been leading a free and restless life as an independent artist ”

“ All at once Weber stepped on the scene with his new opera. We can quite understand how ardently the patriots of Berlin must have longed for a brilliant success, if only as a counterpoise to Spontini. Obviously, too, it was impossible to prevent a certain anxiety lest Weber was not man enough to sustain with honour this conflict with the foreigner. He was known as a gifted composer of songs and instrumental music, but his earlier operas had not been undisputed successes, and for the last ten years he had done nothing at all in that line. ”