Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (c. 18 November 1786 – 5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, skilled pianist, guitarist, and music critic during the late Classical and early Romantic periods. He is most famous for his operas and played an important role in developing German Romantic opera.
As a young man, his father, Franz Anton, often moved the family between cities, including Hamburg, Salzburg, Freiberg, Augsburg, and Vienna. Because of this, Weber studied with many teachers, including his father, Johann Peter Heuschkel, Michael Haydn, Giovanni Valesi, Johann Nepomuk Kalcher, and Georg Joseph Vogler. Under their guidance, he wrote four operas, but none of them are complete today. He also created a limited number of non-operatic works, such as two symphonies, two concertos, a clarinet and orchestra concertino, a bassoon concerto, a horn concertino, two concertos, and a Konzertstück for piano and orchestra. He composed piano pieces like Invitation to the Dance and many works featuring the clarinet, often written for the skilled clarinetist Heinrich Baermann.
Weber’s mature operas—Silvana (1810), Abu Hassan (1811), Der Freischütz (1821), Die drei Pintos (composed 1820–21), Euryanthe (1823), and Oberon (1826)—greatly influenced later German composers such as Marschner, Meyerbeer, and Wagner. His piano compositions also affected the works of Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Liszt. His most famous opera, Der Freischütz, is still considered one of the most important German operas.
Life and career
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was born around November 18, 1786, in Eutin, Bishopric of Lübeck. He was the oldest of three children born to Franz Anton von Weber and his second wife, Genovefa Brenner, a singer from Vienna. He was baptized as a Catholic on November 20, 1786, with the name Carl Friedrich Ernst. The name Maria was added later in his life. His brother and sister died before reaching the age of one. Both of his parents were Catholic and originally from southern Germany. The "von" in his name was a pretense used by his father, who was not an aristocrat but claimed descent from a noble family that no longer existed.
In April 1779, Franz Anton was appointed director of the prince-bishopric orchestra in Eutin. However, the orchestra was dissolved in 1781 due to budget cuts. Franz Anton then became Eutin’s municipal music director. He left this position in 1787 and started a theater company in Hamburg. After a short time in Vienna, he joined a theater group led by Johann Friedrich Toscani and Peter Carl Santorini, who performed in Kassel, Marburg, and Hofgeismar. Franz Anton tried several times to create his own theater company but had only limited success.
Franz Anton’s half-brother, Franz Fridolin Weber, married Cäcilia Stamm and had four daughters: Josepha, Aloysia, Constanze, and Sophie. All of them became well-known singers. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once tried to court Aloysia, writing music for her. When she refused, Mozart later married Constanze, making her Carl Maria von Weber’s cousin.
A skilled violinist, Franz Anton wanted to make his son a musical prodigy like Mozart. Weber was born with a hip condition that prevented him from walking until he was four years old. By that time, he was already able to sing and play the piano.
Franz Anton provided Weber with a broad education, though it was often interrupted by the family’s frequent moves. In 1796, Weber continued his music training in Hildburghausen, Thuringia, where he studied with the oboist Johann Peter Heuschkel. Later, in 1797, he moved to Salzburg and studied with Michael Haydn, the younger brother of the famous Joseph Haydn, who taught Weber for free.
Weber’s time in Salzburg was difficult because his mother, Genovefa, died of tuberculosis on March 13, 1798, and his one-year-old sister, Antonetta, died on December 29, 1798, in Munich. After his mother’s death, his paternal aunt Adelaide took care of him.
Weber visited Joseph Haydn in Vienna, likely hoping to study with him, but the visit was unsuccessful. In 1798, Weber moved to Munich, where he studied singing with Johann Evangelist Wallishauser and composition with Johann Nepomuk Kalcher. Kalcher supervised Weber’s first opera, Die Macht der Liebe und des Weins (The Power of Love and Wine). This opera, like many of Weber’s early works, is now lost. At age twelve, Weber published six piano fughettas in Leipzig.
Weber expanded his musical education by learning lithography, a printing technique, in the workshop of Alois Senefelder, its inventor, and Franz Gleißner in the autumn of 1799. Weber himself lithographed a set of his piano variations.
In 1800, the family moved to Freiberg in Saxony. At age fourteen, Weber wrote an opera called Das stumme Waldmädchen (The Silent Forest Maiden). The opera was performed in Freiberg, Chemnitz, Saint Petersburg (1804), Vienna (1804/1805), and Prague (1806). Weber also began writing music criticism, including articles for the Leipziger Neue Zeitung in 1801.
In 1801, the family returned to Salzburg, where Weber studied again with Michael Haydn. Weber composed his third opera, Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn (Peter Schmoll and His Neighbors), which his teacher approved of. After a concert tour in 1802, the family returned to Augsburg, where it is believed Peter Schmoll premiered.
In mid-1803, Weber studied in Vienna with Abbé Vogler, who founded important music schools in Mannheim, Stockholm, and Darmstadt. Another famous student of Vogler was Jakob Meyer Beer, later known as Giacomo Meyerbeer, who became a close friend of Weber. They called each other "brother" in their letters.
Vogler recommended the 17-year-old Weber for the position of Director at the Breslau Opera in 1804. Weber accepted the job and worked to improve the opera by hiring younger singers, expanding the orchestra, and performing more challenging music. Though his work was praised, his fast tempi were often criticized. Weber left the position after two years because his schedule left little time for his own compositions.
After a brief time at the court of Duke Eugen of Württemberg in Silesia, Weber served as a private secretary to Duke Ludwig, brother of King Frederick I of Württemberg, from 1807 to 1810. His time in Württemberg was difficult. He became deeply in debt and was involved in financial issues with his employer, such as selling documents that exempted buyers from military service. Weber was arrested and accused of embezzlement and bribery. He proved the charges were false, but the case was handled under civil law to avoid implicating the king’s brother. Weber agreed to pay the costs (the final payment was made in 1816) and was exiled from Württemberg with his father.
As a result, Weber began keeping a diary to track his expenses, correspondence, and occasional notes about events.
Weber remained active as a composer during this time, writing religious music, mostly for Catholic masses. This work angered some conservatives who wanted to restore traditional chants in religious services. Warrack, in his biography of Weber, noted that Weber was an accomplished guitarist. In this period, Weber’s first song with guitar accompaniment, "Liebeszauber," was published. Some of his most original songs, such as "Er an Sie" (1808) and "Was zieht zu deinem Zauberkreise" (1809), were also written during this time.
In 1810, Weber visited several German cities. 1811 was a key year in his career when he met the Munich court clarinetist Heinrich Baermann and composed the Concertino in E♭ Major, Op. 26, J. 109, and two concertos, J. 114 and J. 118, for Baermann. From December 1811 to March 1812, Weber toured with Baermann, performing clarinet works. These concerts changed public and
Legacy
Weber's operas, Der Freischütz, Euryanthe, and Oberon, had a major impact on the development of Romantic opera in Germany. Der Freischütz became known as the first German opera. Euryanthe advanced the use of repeating musical themes, called leitmotifs, in a way that had not been done before. Oberon may have inspired Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream. It also showed Weber's long-term interest in music from non-Western cultures. This interest first appeared in Weber's incidental music for Schiller's version of Gozzi's Turandot, where he used a Chinese melody. This made Weber the first Western composer to use an Asian tune that was not the fake Turkish style popularized by Mozart and others.
Weber's music for the clarinet, bassoon, and horn is still widely performed. His clarinet works include two concertos, a concertino, a quintet, a duo concertante, and variations based on a theme from his opera Silvana. These pieces are often played today. His Concertino for Horn and Orchestra requires the performer to hum while playing to create two notes at once, a technique called "multiphonics." His bassoon concerto and the Andante e Rondo ungarese (a reworked piece originally for viola and orchestra) are also popular among bassoonists.
Weber's contributions to vocal and choral music were important. His Catholic religious music was widely performed in 19th-century Germany. He also composed one of the earliest song cycles, Die Temperamente beim Verluste der Geliebten (Four Temperaments on the Loss of a Lover). Weber was among the first conductors to lead performances without using a piano or violin.
Weber's orchestration was praised by later composers. Berlioz mentioned Weber several times in his Treatise on Instrumentation, and Debussy noted that Weber's orchestra sounded like the unique qualities of each instrument were carefully studied.
Weber's operas influenced later composers, especially in Germany, such as Marschner, Meyerbeer, and Wagner. His work also inspired nationalist composers like Glinka. Many 20th-century composers, including Debussy and Stravinsky, honored Weber's contributions. Mahler completed Weber's unfinished comic opera Die drei Pintos and revised Euryanthe and Oberon. Hindemith wrote a popular piece called Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, based on Weber's lesser-known keyboard works and the incidental music for Turandot.
Weber also wrote music journalism and studied folksong. He learned lithography to engrave his own works.
A skilled pianist, Weber composed four sonatas, two concertos, and the Konzertstück in F minor (Concert Piece). This work inspired composers like Chopin, Liszt, and Mendelssohn. The Konzertstück introduced a new model for the one-movement concerto with contrasting sections, which Liszt often performed. Stravinsky later called it the model for his Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. Weber's shorter piano pieces, such as Invitation to the Dance, were later arranged for orchestra by Berlioz. Liszt also adapted Weber's Polacca Brillante for piano and orchestra. However, Weber's piano music is rarely performed today. Some recordings of his major piano works exist, including complete versions of his sonatas and shorter pieces. Individual sonatas have been recorded by musicians like Claudio Arrau, Alfred Cortot, Emil Gilels, Sviatoslav Richter, and Leon Fleisher. Invitation to the Dance, though better known in Berlioz's orchestration (as part of ballet music for a Paris production of Der Freischütz), has been played and recorded by pianists such as Benno Moiseiwitsch (in Carl Tausig's arrangement). The piece also became the basis for Benny Goodman's swing theme song for the radio program Let's Dance.