Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernest von Weber (?November 19 1786 – June 5 1826) was a German composer, born in the town of Eutin, near Lübeck. He was a critical figure in the development of musical Romanticism, and influenced many composers of his and of subsequent generations, including Wagner, Liszt and Berlioz. He was best known in the 19th century for his operas, including Der Freischütz, an international sensation at the time, and Euryanthe, Oberon, King of the Fairies, Silvana, and Die drei Pintos. His numerous overtures, with their adventurous use of tone color, influenced the development of the symphonic poem.

1800s

In 1800, the family moved to Freiberg, where the Ritter von Steinsberg gave Weber the libretto of an opera called Das Waldmädchen (The forest maiden), which the boy, though not yet fourteen years old, at once set to music, and produced in November at the Freiberg theatre. The performance was by no means successful, and the composer himself was accustomed to speak of the work as "a very immature production"; yet it was afterwards produced in Chemnitz, and even Vienna.

Related Topics:
Freiberg - Chemnitz

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Weber returned with his father to Salzburg in 1801, resuming his studies under Michael Haydn. Here he composed his second opera, Peter Schmott und seine Nachbarn (Peter Schmott and his Neighbors), which was unsuccessfully produced in Nuremberg in 1803. In that year, he again visited Vienna, where, though Joseph Haydn and Albrechtsberger were both receiving pupils, his father preferred placing him with Abbé Vogler. Through Vogler's instrumentality, Weber was appointed conductor of the opera at Breslau, before he had completed his eighteenth year. In this capacity he greatly enlarged his experience of the stage, so that he ranks among the greatest masters of stage-craft in musical history; but he lived a sadly irregular life, contracted debts, and lost his beautiful voice through accidentally drinking an acid used in lithography, a mishap that nearly cost him his life. These hindrances, however, did not prevent him from beginning a new opera called Rübezahl, featuring a "romantic" libretto. Weber worked at it enthusiastically, but it was never completed and little of it has been preserved beyond a quintet and the masterly overture, which, re-written in 1811 under the title of Der Beherrscher der Geister (The Master of the Spirits), ranks among its author's finest instrumental compositions.

Related Topics:
Nuremberg - Joseph Haydn - Albrechtsberger - Abbé Vogler - Conductor - Breslau - Quintet - Overture

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Quitting Breslau in 1806, Weber moved in the following year to Stuttgart, where he had been offered the post of private secretary to Duke Ludwig, brother of Frederick, king of Württemberg. The appointment was a disastrous one. The stipend attached to it was insufficient to meet the twofold demands of the young man's new social position and the thriftlessness of his father, who was entirely dependent upon him for support. Court life at Stuttgart was uncongenial to him, though he yielded to its temptations. The king hated him and his practical jokes. He fell hopelessly into debt, and, worse still, became involved in a fatal intimacy with Margarethe Lang, a singer at the opera. Notwithstanding these distractions he worked hard, and in 1809 re-modelled Das Waldmädchen, under the title of Sylvana, and prepared to produce it at the court theatre. But a dreadful calamity prevented its performance.

Related Topics:
Stuttgart - Frederick - Württemberg - Margarethe Lang

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Weber's father had misappropriated a large sum of money placed in the young secretary's hands for the purpose of clearing a mortgage on one of the duke's estates. Both father and son were charged with embezzlement, and, on February 9, 1810 they were arrested at the theatre, during a rehearsal of Sylvana, and thrown in jail on the king's order. No one doubted Weber's innocence, but after a summary trial he and his father were ordered to leave the country, and on February 27 they began a new life in Mannheim.

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