Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/476

Rh that there is only one obvious mistake in the whole work, and the general correctness of declamation is higher than in most of his German works. This is typical-of Weber's general culture, mental energy and determination; points in which, as in many traits in his music, he strikingly resembles Wagner. But all his determination could not quite repair the defects of his purely musical training, and though his weaknesses are not of glaring effect in opera, still there are moments when even the stage cannot explain them away. Thus the finale of Der Freischütz breaks down so obviously that no one thinks of it as anything but a perfunctory winding-up of the story, though it really might have made quite a fine subject for musical treatment. In Euryanthe Weber attained his full power, and his inspiration did not leave him in the lurch where this work needed large musical designs. But the libretto was full of absurdities; especially in the last act, which not even nine remodellings under Weber's direction could redeem. Yet it is easy to see why it fascinated him, for, whatever may be said against it from the standpoints of probability and literary merit, its emotional contrasts are highly musical. Indeed it is through them that the defects invite criticism.

Oberon is spoilt by the old local tradition of English opera according to which its libretto admitted of no music during the action of the drama. Thus Weber had in it no opportunity for his musical stage-craft; apart from the fact that the action itself is entirely without dramatic motive and passion, since the characters are simply shifted from Bordeaux to Bagdad whenever Oberon waves his wand.

Many attempts have been made to improve the libretti of Euryanthe and Oberon, but none are quite successful, for Weber has taken a great artist's pains in making the best of bad material. All that can be said against Weber's achievements only reveals the more emphatically how noble and how complete in essentials was his success and his claim to immortality. His pianoforte works, while showing his helplessness in purely musical form, more than bear out his contemporary reputation as a very great pianoforte player. They have a pronounced theatrical tendency which, in the case of such pieces of gay romanticism as the Invitation à la danse and the Concertstück, is amusing and by no means inartistic. In orchestration Weber is one of the greatest masters. His treatment of the voice is bold and interesting, but very rash; and his declamation of words is often incorrect. His influence on the music of his own day is comparable to his influence on posterity; for he was not only a most efficient director but a very persuasive journalist; and (in spite of the inexperience that made him disapprove of Beethoven) for all good music other than his own he showed a growing enthusiasm that was infectious. (D. F. T.)

WEBER, WILHELM EDUARD (1804-1891), German physicist, was born at Wittenberg on the 24th of October 1804, and was a younger brother of Ernst Heinrich Weber, the author of Weber's Law (see below). He studied at the university of Halle, where he took his doctor's degree in 1826 and became extraordinary professor of physics in 1828. Three years later he removed to Göttingen as professor of physics, and remained there till 1837, when he was one of the seven professors who were expelled from their chairs for protesting against the action of the king of Hanover (duke of Cumberland) in suspending the constitution. A period of retirement followed this episode, but in 1843 he accepted the chair of physics at Leipzig, and six years later returned to Göttingen, where he died on the 23rd of June 1891. Weber's name is especially known for his work on electrical measurement. Until his time there was no established system either of stating or measuring electrical quantities; but he showed, as his colleague K. F. Gauss did for magnetic quantities, that it is both theoretically and practically possible to define them, not merely by reference to other arbitrary quantities of the same kind, but absolutely in terms in which the units of length, time, and mass are alone involved. He also carried on extensive researches in the theory of magnetism; and it is interesting that in connexion with his observations in terrestrial magnetism he not only employed an early form of mirror galvanometer, but

also, about 1833, devised a system of electromagnetic telegraphy, by which a distance of some 9000 ft. was worked over. In conjunction with his elder brother he published in 1825 a well-known treatise on waves, Die Wellenlehre auf Experimente gegründet; and in 1833 he collaborated with his younger brother, the physiologist Eduard Friedrich Weber (1806-1871), in an investigation into the mechanism of walking.

WEBER'S LAW, in psychology, the name given to a principle first enunciated by the German scientist, Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795-1878), who became professor at Leipzig (of anatomy, 1818, of physiology, 1840). He was specially famous for his researches into aural and cutaneous sensations. His law, the purport of which is that the increase of stimulus necessary to produce an increase of sensation in any sense is not a fixed quantity but depends on the proportion which the increase bears to the immediately preceding stimulus, is the principal generalization of that branch of scientific investigation which has come to be known as psycho-physics (q.v.).