Later he was unfortunate enough to become secretary to Duke Ludwig of Württemberg at Stuttgart who was not a fit companion for a young man. Weber mixed in the gay life of the Duke and his friends, fell into bad habits, and drifted into money difficulties. Strange to say, during this time he read much and even wrote some music encouraged by Danzi, his friend.
However, he got into a scrape trying to help his father out of a financial difficulty, angered the King and was banished in 1810; and though cleared of his guilt, he remained in exile for some time. Then deciding to turn over a new leaf, with a mind teeming with ideas, he settled down to work.
He soon became known for his compositions and was made Musical Director at the Prague Theatre, where he won popular favor by writing national songs. He undertook to organize a Dresden troupe, after having done a similar work in Prague, but he was annoyed by bad health and the jealousies of his rivals. Nevertheless, here he produced Der Freischütz, Enchanted Huntsman, which Berlin received in 1821 with wild enthusiasm, while Euryanthe, given almost at the same time, was not, in Vienna, very successful.
Weber’s operas, as the beginning of German romantic opera, are on the direct road to Wagner’s. Wagner inherited from Gluck and Weber, and Gluck inherited directly from the German Singspiel (sing-play) of the 18th century, which was a play composed of dances and songs not unlike the English masque and the French ballet and vaudeville. It came before opera in Germany, yet made the basis for a German school, for it used German song and German subjects. Mozart, too, was one of Weber’s musical fathers, especially in his Magic Flute.
We see Weber, now, as we saw Mozart, combining the supernatural with national or German melody, and using both imagination and realistic effects. His Oberon is full of fairy atmosphere and Der Freischütz is often uncanny and awesome. He keeps the spoken dialogue of the old Singspiel and in Der Freischütz deals for the first time with peasant life. His orchestration is lovely and his skill with it was so great that he is still looked upon as one of the important men in the development of the orchestra. He paints the individual characters beautifully by giving each one suitable music to sing.
He reached dramatic heights by his contrasts between mellow quietness and brilliant effects. He made use of all the resources on his instruments, their defects as well as their good points. No one had ever before written more weird music than in the scene of the Wolf’s Glen, in Der Freischütz.
His piano music, including many fine sonatas, was rich with new and brilliant effects and his Concertstück (Concert-piece) was the father of the symphonic poems which were later written by Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss. Thus did Weber give much to music’s growth.
Louis Spohr (1784–1854) who was later a kind friend to Wagner, wrote ten operas which belong, too, in the Romantic School of Weber. He, however, was best known for his violin concertos, written in the classic style of Haydn and Mozart. He wrote these because he lived in the time of the great piano and violin virtuosi (brilliant performers) in Vienna. His work is tiresome to us because of his many mannerisms.
Grétry and Opéra Comique
Now we will go back a little and take up the French School with Grétry, the first man of importance in France after Rameau, and the founder of the comedy opera (opéra comique).