Great Musical Composers: German, French, and Italian

by George T. Ferris

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.

II.

A curious episode in Weber’s life was his connection with the royal family of Würtemberg, where he found a dissolute, poverty-stricken court, and a whimsical, arrogant, half-crazy king. Here he remained four years in a half-official musical position, his nominal duty being that of secretary to the king’s brother, Prince Ludwig. This part of his career was almost a sheer waste, full of dreary and irritating experiences, which Weber afterwards spoke of with disgust and regret. His spirit revolted from the capricious tyranny which he was obliged to undergo, but circumstances seem to have coerced him into a protracted endurance of the place. His letters tell us how bitterly he detested the king and his dull, pompous court, though Prince Ludwig in a way seemed to have been attached to his secretary. One of his biographers says:—

“Weber hated the king, of whose wild caprice and vices he witnessed daily scenes, before whose palace-gates he was obliged to slink bareheaded, and who treated him with unmerited ignominy. Sceptre and crown had never been imposing objects in his eyes, unless worn by a worthy man; and consequently he was wont, in the thoughtless levity of youth, to forget the dangers he ran, and to answer the king with a freedom of tone which the autocrat was all unused to hear. In turn he was detested by the monarch. As negotiator for the spendthrift Prince Ludwig, he was already obnoxious enough; and it sometimes happened that, by way of variety to the customary torrent of invective, the king, after keeping the secretary for hours in his antechamber, would receive him only to turn him rudely out of the room, without hearing a word he had to say.”

At last Karl Maria’s indignation burst over bounds at some unusual indignity; and he played a practical joke on the king. Meeting an old woman in the palace one day near the door of the royal sanctum, she asked him where she could find the court-washerwoman. “There,” said the reckless Weber, pointing to the door of the king’s cabinet. The king, who hated old women, was in a transport of rage, and, on her terror-stricken explanation of the intrusion, had no difficulty in fixing the mischief in the right quarter. Weber was thrown into prison, and had it not been for Prince Ludwig’s intercession he would have remained there for several years. While confined he managed to compose one of his most beautiful songs, “Ein steter Kampf ist unser Leben.” He had not long been released when he was again imprisoned on account of some of his father’s wretched follies, that arrogant old gentleman being utterly reckless how he involved others, so long as he carried out his own selfish purposes and indulgence. His friend Danzi, director of the royal opera at Stuttgart, proved his good genius in this instance; for he wrangled with the king till his young friend was released.

Weber’s only consolations during this dismal life in Stuttgart were the friendship of Danzi, and his love for a beautiful singer named Gretchen. Danzi was a true mentor and a devoted friend. He was wont to say to Karl—“To be a true artist, you must be a true man.” But the lovely Gretchen, however she may have consoled his somewhat arid life, was not a beneficial influence, for she led him into many sad extravagances and an unwholesome taste for playing the cavalier.

In spite of his discouraging surroundings, Weber’s creative power was active during this period, and showed how, perhaps unconsciously to himself, he was growing in power and depth of experience. He wrote the cantata, “Der erste Ton,” a large number of songs, the first of his great piano sonatas, several overtures and symphonies, and the opera “Sylvana” (“Das Waldmädchen” rewritten and enlarged), which, both in its music and libretto, seems to have been the precursor of his great works, “Der Freischütz” and “Euryanthe.” At the first performance of “Sylvana” in Frankfort, September 16, 1810, he met Miss Caroline Brandt, who sang the principal character. She afterwards became his wife, and her love and devotion were the solace of his life.

Weber spent most of the year 1810 in Darmstadt, where he again met Vogler and Meyerbeer. Vogler’s severe artistic instructions were of great value to Weber in curbing his extravagance, and impressing on him that restraint was one of the most valuable factors in art. What Vogler thought of Weber we learn from a letter in which he writes—“Had I been forced to leave the world before I found these two, Weber and Meyerbeer, I should have died a miserable man.”

III.

It was about this time, while visiting Mannheim, that the idea of “Der Freischütz” first entered his mind. His friend the poet Kind was with him, and they were ransacking an old book, Apel’s Ghost Stories. One of these dealt with the ancient legend of the hunter Bartusch, a woodland myth ranking high in German folk-lore. They were both delighted with the fantastic and striking story, full of the warm colouring of Nature, and the balmy atmosphere of the forest and mountain. They immediately arranged the framework of the libretto, afterwards written by Kind, and set to such weird and enchanting music by Weber.