Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/412

396 to 'Peter Schmoll,' and played for the first time his PF. Concerto in C, completed on Oct. 4. Among the audience was Princess Stephanie of Baden, whose father, the Crown-Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, Weber had met a few months before at Baden-Baden. The Prince had been delighted with him, and had walked about with him all night, while he sang serenades to his guitar. The Princess also was anxious to hear him in this capacity, and after the concert he sang her a number of his best songs to the guitar, making so great an impression that she promised to procure him the post of Capellmeister in Mannheim, or make him an allowance of 1000 gulden from her privy purse. All this however ended in nothing, for a few weeks later he received a message from the Princess to say that she found her promise had been made too hastily.

The cause of Weber's so soon giving up the 'Freischütz,' which Dusch was to prepare for him, was that he had been busy for some time with a new opera, or rather comic Singspiel, in one act, called 'Abu Hassan,' the libretto of which Franz Hiemer sent him, March 29, 1810, from Stuttgart. He composed one number, the Creditors' chorus, at Mannheim, Aug. 11, left it untouched till Nov. 1, and completed it at Darmstadt, Jan. 12, 1811. By Vogler's advice the work was dedicated to the Grand Duke Ludwig, who, although an enthusiastic devotee and connoisseur of music (he used to conduct the rehearsals at the opera himself) had hitherto declined to have much to do with Weber, possibly because the latter had not shown sufficient deference to his authority on matters of art. Now he seemed much more kindly disposed, sent a handsome fee for the score, and gave permission for a concert at the Schloss (Feb. 6, 1811), himself taking 120 tickets. For it Weber composed an Italian duet for two altos (Mesdames Mangold and Schönberger) and small orchestra, with clarinet oblipato, played by Heinrich Barmann of Munich. The duet pleased greatly, and was encored, but all this success did not end in a permanent appointment, as Weber had at one time hoped would be the case. Meyerbeer had left on Feb. 12 for a tour; outside the court the inhabitants had little feeling for music; Weber did not care to be left wholly to Vogler; and on Feb. 14 he finally left a place where he had never felt thoroughly at home, and started on a grand concert-tour.

At this period he often felt sorely the restless, uncertain conditions of his life, the inconstant nature of all human relations, and the loneliness to which he seemed doomed by the sudden snatching away of friends as soon as he became attached to them. During his last visit but one to Mannheim, he composed a song called 'Weber's Abschied' (Dec. 8, 1810) to words by Dusch. Some of the verses may be thus paraphrased:—

At Darmstadt on the night of January 12, 1811, he wrote down more connectedly some of the thoughts which surged through his mind. His childhood came up before him, and his life, so full of disappointments, and so near failure. 'My path in life,' says he, 'was cast from my birth in different lines to that of any other human being; I have no happy childish days to look back upon, no free open boyhood; though still a youth I am an old man in experience, learning everything through my own feelings and by myself, nothing by means of others.' To Gänsbacher he writes a few months later, 'You live in the midst of your own people, I stand alone; think then how much a word from you refreshes and revives me.' His elastic temperament however soon recovered itself, as the smallest piece of good fortune was enough to feed his hopes, and the consciousness that he had at last laid firm hold of Art—his own proper aim in life—was a constant encouragement. Nothing could distract him from this, nor from the continuous endeavour to work out his moral education. The touching tone of piety and trust which runs through his later life is now first noticeable. He closes the year 1810 with the following avowal: 'God has sent me many vexations and disappointments, but He has also thrown me with many good kind people, who have made life worth living. I can say honestly and in all quietness, that within the last ten months I have become a better man.'

Weber travelled through Frankfort to Giessen, where he gave a well-attended concert on Feb. 18, and Hanau, where he saw a 'bad play' on the 23rd; went next day to Aschaffenburg, where he stayed two days, and made acquaintance with Sterkel, an adherent of Vogler's; and by March 3 was at Würzburg. Thence he went to Bamberg, where he met E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Bader the tenor, both of whom reappear in the Freischütz period; and by Nuremberg and Augsburg to Munich, arriving March 14. Here he stayed nearly five months, finding powerful stimulus in the society of Bärmann, the greatest clarinet-player of his time, for whom he wrote within the next few months no less than three concertos. The first, in C minor and E♭, was played at his first concert (April 5) as well as his PF. Concerto, one of his symphonies, and the 'Erster Ton.' Bärmann played the second, in F minor, at a concert given by Kaufmann the pianoforte-maker of Dresden (June 13), and again at Weber's second (Aug. 7). These compositions procured