The genius which inspired the three great works, "Der Freischütz,"
"Euryanthe," and "Oberon," has stamped itself as one of the most
original and characteristic in German music. Full of bold and
surprising strokes of imagination, these operas are marked by the true
atmosphere of national life and feeling, and we feel in them the
fresh, rich colour of the popular traditions and song-music which make
the German _Lieder_ such an inexhaustible treasure-trove. As Weber was
maturing into that fullness of power which gave to the world his
greater works, Germany had been wrought into a passionate patriotism
by the Napoleonic wars. The call to arms resounded from one end of
the Fatherland to the other. Every hamlet thrilled with fervour, and
all the resources of national tradition were evoked to heighten the
love of country into a puissance which should save the land. Germany
had been humiliated by a series of crushing defeats, and national
pride was stung to vindicate the grand old memories. France, in answer
to a similar demand for some art-expression of its patriotism, had
produced its Rouget de Lisle; Germany produced the poet Körner and the
musician Weber.
It is not easy to appreciate the true quality and significance of
Weber's art-life without considering the peculiar state of Germany at
the time; for if ever creative imagination was forged and fashioned by
its environments into a logical expression of public needs and
impulses, it was in the case of the father of German romantic opera.
This inspiration permeated the whole soil of national thought, and its
embodiment in art and letters has hardly any parallel except in that
brilliant morning of English thought which we know as the Elizabethan
era. To understand Weber the composer, then, we must think of him not
only as the musician, but as the patriot and revivalist of ancient
tendencies in art, drawn directly from the warm heart of the people.
KARL MARIA VON WEBER was born at Eutin, in Holstein, December 18,
1786. His father had been a soldier, but, owing to extravagance and
folly, had left the career of arms, and, being an educated musician,
had become by turns attached to an orchestra, director of a theatre,
Kapellmeister, and wandering player--never remaining long in one
position, for he was essentially vagrant and desultory in character.
Whatever Karl Maria had to suffer from his father's folly and
eccentricity, he was indebted to him for an excellent training in the
art of which he was to become so brilliant an ornament. He had
excellent masters in singing and the piano, as also in drawing and
engraving. So he grew up a melancholy, imaginative recluse, absorbed
in his studies, and living in a dream-land of his own, which he
peopled with ideal creations. His passionate love of Nature, tinged
with old German superstition, planted in his imagination those
fruitful germs which bore such rich results in after years.
In 1797 Weber studied the piano and composition under Hanschkel, a
thoroughly scientific musician, and found in his severe drill a happy
counter-balancing influence to the more desultory studies which had
preceded. Major Weber's restless tendencies did not permit his family
to remain long in one place. In 1798 they moved to Salzburg, where
young Weber was placed at the musical institute of which Michael
Haydn, brother of the great Joseph, was director. Here a variety of
misfortunes assailed the Weber family. Major Franz Anton was
unsuccessful in all his theatrical undertakings, and extreme poverty
stared them all in the face. The gentle mother, too, whom Karl so
dearly loved, sickened and died. This was a terrible blow to the
affectionate boy, from which he did not soon recover.
The next resting-place in the pilgrimage of the Weber family was
Munich, where Major Weber, who, however flagrant his shortcomings in
other ways, was resolved that the musical powers of his son should be
thoroughly trained, placed him under the care of the organist Kalcher
for studies in composition.
For several years, Karl was obliged to lead the same shifting, nomadic
sort of life, never stopping long, but dragged hither and thither in
obedience to his father's vagaries and necessities, but always
studying under the best masters who could be obtained. While under
Kalcher, several masses, sonatas, trios, and an opera, "Die Macht der
Liebe und des Weins" ("The Might of Love and Wine"), were written.
Another opera, "Das Waldmädchen" ("The Forest Maiden"), was composed
and produced when he was fourteen; and two years later in Salzburg he
composed "Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn," an operetta, which
exacted warm praise from Michael Haydn.
At the age of seventeen he became the pupil of the great teacher, Abbé
Vogler, under whose charge also Meyerbeer was then studying. Our
young composer worked with great assiduity under the able instruction
of Vogler, who was of vast service in bringing the chaos of his
previous contradictory teachings into order and light. All these
musical _Wanderjahre_, however trying, had steeled Karl Maria into a
stern self-reliance, and he found in his skill as an engraver the
means to remedy his father's wastefulness and folly.