Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/582

WEB  of the process, which he fancied would entitle him to rank with the original inventor. He soon wearied, however, of this pursuit, and returned with renewed ardour to his musical studies. In November, 1800, he made his first public essay as a dramatic writer, in the opera of "Das Waldmädchen," which was played at Freiberg with success. An article in the Leipsic Musikallishe Zeitung prompted him to attempt some innovations, and perhaps reforms, in dramatic music, to effect which, he wrote a comic opera, "Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbaren;" it, however, had no success. He went to Vienna in 1803, and became the pupil of Wogler, with whom he remained for nearly two years. In 1804 he obtained an engagement as music director of the theatre in Breslau, where he acquired the character of an excellent conductor, and profited by his intimacy with F. W. Berner. He gave up his appointment in 1806, and became private secretary to the duke of Wurtemburg, with whom he resided for some time at Carlsruhe, where his official occupation left him so much leisure for music that he wrote two symphonies and many other pieces. He afterwards went to Stuttgart with the same noble family; there he rewrote the "Waldmädchen," with which, notwithstanding its remarkable reception when it was first produced, he was now dissatisfied, and under the name of "Sylvana" gave it a second time to the world. He wrote also at Stuttgart "Der erste Ton," a dramatic cantata. He now became much distinguished as a pianist. In this capacity he made a successful tour in 1809, which he closed at Darmstadt, where Wogler was then living. In this city, where he made the acquaintance of Meyerbeer and other musicians, he produced his characteristic little operetta of "Abu Hassan" in 1810, with considerable success. During the next year he visited the chief capitals of Germany, augmenting his reputation as a player; and in 1813 he was appointed director of the opera at Prague, with the charge of organizing a new orchestra. It was now that he composed his four-part songs for male voices, to Korner's patriotic series of poems, "Leier und Schwert," which had an immense popularity and not a little political influence, and were the first things that brought their composer's name into general repute. In 1815 he produced his cantata, "Kampf und Sieg," in celebration of the battle of Waterloo. He gave up his post in 1816, and then spent two years at Berlin, where he wrote three of his pianoforte sonatas. In 1818 he was engaged to share with Morlacchi the office of kapellmeister in the court theatre at Dresden; Weber having the direction of the German operas, and his coadjutor of the Italian. One of his first duties in this appointment, was to compose a mass in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of the accession of the king of Saxony, and his well-known Jubilee Overture was written for the same occasion. The melodrama of "Preciosa," with Weber's music, was brought out at Berlin, March 14, 1820, and it is still a standard work on the German stage. The 18th of June, 1821, was rendered notable in the annals of dramatic music, by the first performance of "Der Freischütz," to the enormous success of which opera, and its great influence upon the art, Weber mainly owes his high reputation. The work was projected in 1818 by the composer and his friend, F. Kind, the author of the libretto; and they laboured, with common zeal, at their design of embodying in a work of art one of the most popular of the German legends. Weber was very exacting of his poet as to the conduct of the story, and required him to rewrite the last finale many times. The overture was publicly played some time prior to the production of the opera, and stimulated general interest in the work, which was reserved for the opening of the new Königstadt theatre in Berlin. Its brilliant reception has been, in some degree, ascribed to the resistance of the opposition of Spontini's supporters by the partisans of German music. Its emphatically national character may have rendered it, more than other works, a subject for invective and defence, and the excitement thus raised about it was heightened by the marked originality and great attractiveness of the music, which was soon heard in all possible forms. Its production in London opened a new era in the lyrical drama, and the present advancing condition of the English opera may distinctly be traced to the effect of this work upon the public mind. Towards the close of 1821, Weber was offered but declined the appointment of kapellmeister to the grand-duke of Hesse Cassel. His "Euryanthe" was produced with moderate success at Vienna, October 25, 1823. The popular rage for the "Freischütz" in London, made Charles Kemble desirous to produce an original work of the composer at Covent Garden theatre, of which he was the proprietor. He accordingly went with Sir George Smart, his musical director, to make arrangements with Weber, who undertook the liberal engagement that was offered him, and chose Wieland's poem of Oberon, as the subject of a new opera. He arrived in London on the 6th of March, 1826. His first public appearance was to conduct the music of the "Freischütz" at the "oratorios," given, alternately at Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres, on the Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent. He subsequently conducted at the Philharmonic concerts, and he gave a benefit concert of his own. "Oberon" was first played on the 12th of April, and the hopes of the entire season, that had been centred in this work, were frustrated by its indifferent reception, which must be mainly ascribed to the utter absence of dramatic effect and musical suggestiveness in the libretto. It was, however, given with success in Germany and France. Finding the disease from which he had been suffering for a considerable time to be rapidly increasing, Weber hastened the arrangements for his return to Dresden, which was delayed only on account of a performance of "Der Freischütz," announced for his benefit at Covent Garden on the 6th of June, but which he did not live to witness. Special performances in honour of him were given at this and the rival theatre. He was interred with great solemnity in Moorfields chapel, and in 1844 his remains were exhumed by his son and removed to Dresden. He left unpublished a comic opera, entitled "Die drei Pintos," which he wished Meyerbeer to complete; it has not been printed. An autobiographical sketch, a powerful romance named the "Life of an Artist," together with several occasional essays (some of which had appeared anonymously in the Cecilia) and some letters of his writing, were published after his death. Weber's pianoforte playing was characterized by singularly great variety of colouring; and another feature of his execution was his facility in making rapid leaps of very wide intervals. As a composer, he is remarkable for strongly original phraseology and novel employment of harmony; for graphic illustration of scenic action; for rushing energy, the effect of which no hearer can resist; for vigorous and most brilliant instrumentation, both in his writing for the orchestra and for the pianoforte; and for the quaint humour especially shown in his single songs. On the other hand, his weakness consists in the fragmentary nature of his melodies, in the incompactness of his designs, except in the case of certain of his best works, which are justly accounted masterpieces, but appear to have been produced rather by inspiration than from habitual command of artistical resources; and finally, in the enormous discrepancy between his really fine and his less successful compositions, which latter are more meritless than anything ever written by a musician of his powers. He carried to a greater extent than any one that wrote before him the system of incorporating in his overture the chief themes of the entire opera; and he was the first to break through the continuous form of the dramatic aria, by frequent change of movement, alternating rhythm and recitative, to identify the scena throughout with the business of the stage. His influence upon other composers has been very great. Lindpaintner and Marschner are the most distinguished of those who have entirely built their manner upon his.—G. A. M.  WEBER,, a German man of letters, was amanuensis to Sir Walter Scott from 1804 till 1814, when he had to be removed to a lunatic asylum at York, where he died in June, 1818. He is favourably known as the editor of Beaumont and Fletcher, and of a collection of Ancient Metrical Romances. He also contributed a valuable analysis of the German Heldenbuch and Nibelungenlied to Jameson's Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (Lockhart, Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, passim).—K. E.  WEBSTER,, an eminent Scottish clergyman, was born in Edinburgh about the year 1707, and was the son of the Rev. James Webster, minister of the Tolbooth church in that city—a zealous covenanter, who in his youth had incurred the resentment of Archbishop Sharp, and had repeatedly suffered imprisonment for his attachment to the presbyterian cause. His son Alexander was educated at the Edinburgh university, where he acquired great distinction, especially in mathematics. In 1733 he was ordained minister of Culross, in the presbytery of Dunfermline, and four years later was translated to the Tolbooth church, Edinburgh, in the room of his father's successor. He soon acquired the reputation of being one of the most eloquent 