The genius which inspired the three great works, "Der Freischutz,"
"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 Ave feel in them the fresh, rich color
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 fervor, 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 Korner 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 Ilanschkel, 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 Waldmäd-chen" ("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
Vogier, 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.