Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/420

404 was at last finished, his delight in dramatic production had reached such a pitch that he at once began and completed another dramatic work, and started at any rate on a third. Count Brühl, Intendant of the Berlin theatres, had asked him for some new music to Wolff's play of 'Preciosa,' Eberwein's not being satisfactory. Weber did as he was requested, and wrote the music—'a heavy piece of work and an important one, more than half an opera,' as he says himself—between May 25 and July 15, 1820. In the meantime he was working at a comic opera, 'Die drei Pintos,' the libretto by Theodor Hell, a Dresden poet, whose real name was Karl Winkler. This work was still progressing in the following year.

Count Brühl, who had a great esteem for Weber, informed him in the summer of 1819 that it was his intention to produce 'Der Freischütz' at the opening of the new theatre, then in course of erection by Schinkel. The building was to have been finished in the spring of 1820, but was not ready till a year later. Weber had intended to take the opportunity of his visit to Berlin for making a professional tour, but it did not seem advisable to postpone this for so long. For the last two years he had been out of health, and disquieting symptoms of the malady which brought his life to a premature close had begun to show themselves. Relaxation and refreshment were urgently necessary. He also wished, after this interval of ten years, to appear again in public as a pianist. He started with his wife July 25, 1820, went first to Leipzig, to his intimate friend Rochlitz, then on to Halle. His settings of Korner's 'Leyer und Schwert' had made Weber the darling composer of the German student, as he discovered at Halle. The greatest enthusiasm prevailed at the concert he gave there, July 31. Among the students with whom he formed relations was J. G. Löwe, afterwards the greatest of German ballad-composers, who took the whole arrangements for the concert off his hands. Still more enthusiastic was his reception by the students of Göttingen, where he arrived August 11, and gave a concert Aug. 17. After it he was serenaded by the students, who sang his Lied 'Lützow's wilder Jagd' and, on his coming down to talk with them, crowded round him cheering. Thence they went by Hanover to Bremen, Oldenburg, and Hamburg, where he left his wife, going on to Lübeck, Eutin (his birthplace, which he had not visited since 1802), and Kiel, from whence he crossed over to Copenhagen. This was the most brilliant point of his journey. He was presented to the King and Queen, played at court on Oct. 4, and at a public concert Oct. 8, overwhelmed with applause on both occasions. After another concert at Hamburg on his way back, he reached Dresden Nov. 4.

As a great pianist Weber was often asked to give lessons, and did so. Pupils in the higher sense of the word, that is to say artists stamped with his own sign-manual as a composer or pianist, he had none. For this his artistic disposition was too peculiar, his character too restless and unmethodical. We find a pupil named Freytag from Berlin studying the piano and composition with him in Prague in 1816, and are told that he made his début at a concert of Weber's (March 29), to his master's satisfaction, but we never hear of him again from that day forwards. Marschner communicated with him in 1818, sending him his opera 'Heinrich IV. und D'Aubigne' from Pressburg, and coming himself Aug. 18, 1819. Weber was much interested in the opera, and secured its performance at Dresden, where it was given for the first time, July 19, 1820. Marschner settled in Dresden in the beginning of August 1821, and in 1824 was appointed Musikdirector of the opera, a post he retained till Weber's death. The two maintained an intercourse which at times was animated, though Weber never found Marschner a congenial companion. Marschner was undoubtedly strongly influenced by Weber's music; it is evident in all his compositions during his stay in Dresden, and also in his opera 'Der Vampyr.' And yet he cannot be called a pupil of Weber's. When he settled in Dresden he was 26, and a formed musician, so that after passing through the Weber-period he recovered his independence in the 'Templer und Jüdin' and 'Hans Heiling.' Weber's most devoted and only real pupil was Jules Benedict of Stuttgart. He came to Weber in February, 1821, and his account of their first interview is so charming that we venture to transcribe it. 'I shall never forget the impression of my first meeting with him. Ascending the by no means easy staircase which led to his modest home, on the third storey of a house in the old marketplace, I found him sitting at his desk, and occupied with the pianoforte arrangement of his Freischütz. The dire disease which but too soon was to carry him off had made its mark on his noble features; the projecting cheek-bones, the general emaciation, told their own tale; but in his clear blue eyes, too often concealed by spectacles, in his mighty forehead fringed by a few straggling locks, in the sweet expression of his mouth, in the very tone of his weak but melodious voice, there was a magic power which attracted irresistibly all who approached him. He received me with the utmost kindness, and, though overwhelmed with double duties during