 |
Discovery
Available scores of Weber Abbreviations: |
This page is also available in French
Copyright notice: The texts, photos, images and musical scores on all pages of this site are covered by UK Law and International Law. All rights of publication or reproduction of this material in any form, including Web page use, are reserved. Their use without our explicit permission is illegal.
DiscoveryBerlioz’s discovery of Weber has a precise starting date, 7 December 1824. That was the date of the first performance at the Odéon theatre of an adapted French version of Weber’s Der Freischütz. The work had become an instant success in Germany after is first performance in Berlin in June 1821. But what Berlioz heard in Paris was not the opera as written by Weber, but a travesty, freely adapted and arranged under the title Robin des Bois by the composer and critic Henri Castil-Blaze (1784-1857). Castil-Blaze specialised in ‘arranging’ operatic works of other composers, to ensure their success as well as his own profit (he subjected Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte to the same treatment under the title Les Mystères d’Isis). Ironically, he was Berlioz’s predecessor at the Journal des Débats and the proud founder of the musical feuilleton in that journal which Berlioz was to inherit years later and raise to a new level of eminence (Castil-Blaze’s first feuilleton was dated 7 December 1820, and he continued in his position till 1833). He was initially well-disposed to the rising young composer, but his treatment of Weber’s masterpiece and of other works damned him forever in Berlioz’s eyes, who crucified him in his writings and ruined his reputation for posterity (Memoirs chapter 16; Débats 15 August 1843, 27 October 1849)
Despite the mutilations it had suffered, Der Freischütz impressed Berlioz deeply and he attended many subsequent performances in 1825. They revealed to him a world he had hitherto not suspected – his main experience of great music so far had been the operas of Gluck and Spontini at the Paris Opéra (Memoirs chapter 16):
This new style, against which my intolerant and exclusive cult of the great classical composers [i.e. Gluck and Spontini] had initially prejudiced me, was a source of wonder and extreme delight, despite the incomplete and crude execution which obscured its true features. Although the score had been subjected to drastic surgery, it nevertheless had a wild and captivating fragrance which intoxicated me. I have to admit I was rather weary of the solemnities of the tragic muse. The swift and sometimes delightfully unpredictable motions of the wood nymph, her dreamy poses, her naïve and maidenly passion, her chaste smile and melancholy, all overwhelmed me with a flood of feelings that I had not previously experienced.
It emerges from a much later article by Berlioz (Débats 23 April 1858) that as well as performing the mutilated Freischütz the Odéon Theatre also gave in 1825 and 1826 a series of performances of Weber’s earlier opera Preciosa many of which Berlioz attended, though he does not mention this in his Memoirs. He was now on the look-out for any music by Weber, and true to his method studied any scores he could get hold of. A letter of 1st November 1828 to his sister Nancy (CG no. 100) shows him and a young German friend, Louis Schloesser, who had known Weber, playing and singing from memory pieces from Der Freischütz, Oberon and Euryanthe to his teacher Lesueur. In the same letter he also sends his sister a waltz by Weber which he describes in detail. It is clear from this that as well as studying the operas he paid attention also to Weber’s instrumental music. When in 1830 he fell in love with the pianist Camille Moke, she would frequently play to him piano music by Weber and Beethoven (CG nos. 168, 169, 172, 173). A year later, while in Florence during his stay in Italy, a letter of his shows him trying to find music by Weber in a bookshop, but being disappointed that the dealer had never heard of Weber... (CG no. 216, 12 April 1831).
Before this time Berlioz had had a fleeting chance to meet Weber himself, who in February 1826 came to Paris on his way to London, where he was to direct the performance of his latest opera Oberon. But despite Berlioz’s best efforts and to his lasting regret, the two men just missed each other, and the chance was not repeated: Weber, who had long suffered from poor health, died in London on 5 June of the same year; his premature death affected Berlioz deeply (Memoirs, chapter 16).
Berlioz’s discovery of Beethoven came towards the end of 1827, more than two years after he had been become a devotee of Weber. From 1828 onwards the two composers were frequently linked together in Berlioz’s mind. For example, in an article entitled ‘Aperçu sur la musique classique et la musique romantique’ published in Le Correspondant of 22 October 1830 (Critique Musicale I, 63-68) he credits Weber and Beethoven with having introduced to France what he calls the genre nstrumental expressif, which was previously unknown:
The instrumental music of older composers had seemingly no other aim than to please the ear or stimulate the mind […] but in the compositions of Beethoven and Weber one may recognise a poetic thought that is present everywhere. It is music that depends entirely on itself, without the help of words to determine its expression; its language becomes thus extremely vague but acquires thereby even greater power for those who are gifted with imagination. […] Hence the extraordinary effects, the strange feelings, the inexpressible emotions produced by the symphonies, quartets, overtures and sonatas of Weber and Beethoven.
The linking of Beethoven and Weber is common in letters of Berlioz of this time. For example in a letter to his father of 29 May 1828 he writes (CG no. 91):
As a general rule I avoid like the plague those commonplaces which all composers (with the exception of Weber and Beethoven) use at the end of their pieces. It is a sort of charlatanism which is intended to mean: « Get ready to start clapping, the piece is about to end », and I find nothing more pitiful than these banal and conventional phrases which make every piece of music sound the same.
Subsequently Berlioz continued to link the two great German composers. At the end of an article he mentions Beethoven and Weber in the same breath: ‘they are our emperors for us musicians, and we dislike seeing them misrepresented and distorted’ (Débats 21 July 1835). For Berlioz they shared some common characteristics: their mastery of the orchestra (see his Treatise on Orchestration and the list of passages cited there), the original way they used rhythm as an expressive element, the power and originality of their overtures (Débats 27 September 1835, 8 March 1859). On the other hand, Berlioz became aware of the differences between them: Weber’s piano music was not as a whole comparable to Beethoven’s (though Berlioz had initially assimilated the two), his chamber music was more limited (Weber never wrote any string quartets), and he never developed into a great symphonist: in a review of an early symphony by Weber Berlioz went out of his way to point out that it fell far short of Weber’s best music (Débats 23 June 1835).
The champion of WeberIn Berlioz’s concerts music by Weber figures with some frequency during most of his conducting career, down to his last concerts in St Petersburg in 1867 and 1868. The works performed were for the most part shorter pieces from Weber’s most popular repertoire which were frequently heard in concerts at the time. Very occasionally Berlioz included works that were more rarely performed. He sometimes complained that the repertoire of the Paris Conservatoire was too limited and made suggestions about works that deserved inclusion; in one of his articles he mentions among other composers a number of pieces by Weber (Débats 5 February 1847). Here is a list of the works he is known to have performed:
All these were shorter pieces, perhaps inevitably so: Weber’s greatest works were complete operas, and Berlioz was never in a position to conduct these himself in an opera house (his appointment as conductor of the Drury Lane Theatre in London in 1847-1848 was short-lived). But a special case arose in 1841 when the Paris Opéra decided to stage Der Freischütz in French (see Berlioz’s account of this episode in his Memoirs chapter 52, though he misdates it to after his first German trip of 1842-1843). Performances of the work in Paris in the original German were rare, as they depended on visiting German opera companies; this happened for Der Freischütz in June 1829 (Critique Musicale I pp. 23-31) and again in April 1842 (Débats 26 April 1842). But the staging of the work in French translation raised a practical problem. The original version comprised spoken dialogue, which was prohibited at the Paris Opéra, and so the work had to be provided with recitatives. Berlioz knew his Weber better than anyone else, and reluctantly accepted to undertake the work rather than leave it to someone less qualified; but he insisted that the opera should be presented complete as written and without any cuts. Further, as the inclusion of ballet music in an opera was considered essential, he also orchestrated for the occasion a piano piece by Weber, the Invitation to the Dance. It subsequently became a popular concert piece in its own right, frequently performed by Berlioz himself (see the list above), and it was taken up later in Paris by the leading concert societies, especially those of Pasdeloup then later of Colonne, though Pasdeloup introduced the practice of omitting the concluding andante to end the piece loudly, much to Berlioz’s fury (CG nos. 2581, 3072; cf. also Débats 12 November 1861).
Berlioz devoted an article in Débats (13 June 1841) to present the work and its new production, though he deliberately did not mention his role in the composition of the recitatives, nor the addition of the Invitation to the Dance. The 1841 production was a success, though criticised at the time by Wagner; it was revived at the Opéra in 1850 (see Débats 13 April 1850), but the story had an unfortunate sequel for Berlioz. In 1853 a Polish count, Tadeusz Tyzkiewicz, prosecuted the Paris Opéra for staging a mutilated version of Der Freischütz, and though Tyzkiewicz lost his case, Berlioz found himself unjustly accused of being responsible for cuts made by the Opéra. He published a letter defending himself in the Paris press (see Débats 22 December 1853), but the controversy spilled over into the German press, much to Berlioz’s justifiable annoyance (CG nos. 1682, 1684, 1685).
Weber’s name occurs in over one third of the nearly 400 articles Berlioz wrote for the Journal des Débats between 1835 and 1863. In the passages where Berlioz discusses Weber at greater length, it is usually in connection with performances of his works in Paris (he did not attempt a biography of Weber, unlike for his other idols Gluck, Spontini and Beethoven). It may be simplest to group the main references in relation to the particular works discussed. On Der Freischütz see Débats 13 June 1841, 26 April 1842, 13 April 1850 and 22 December 1853. On Oberon see Débats 12 February 1835, 24 August 1847, 6 March 1857, 24 October 1857 and 14 May 1863. On Euryanthe see Débats 22 March 1835 and 8 September 1857. On Preciosa see Débats 31 May 1842 and 23 April 1858. On Abu Hassan see Débats 19 May 1859. On the Konzertstück for piano and orchestra see Débats 14 February 1841, 7 January 1849 and 5 February 1850. On the Piano concerto see Débats 4 March 1845. On the Sonata for clarinet and piano see Débats 4 March 1863.
Berlioz reproduced a number of his articles on Weber in his books: see the Soirées de l’orchestre (fourth and eighteenth evenings) and especially À Travers chants (chapter 15, chapter 16, chapter 17).
InfluencesOf all his predecessors, Weber was perhaps the one closest in spirit and style to Berlioz himself, and he anticipated him in more ways than Berlioz may have realised. A man of versatile gifts, Weber innovated as a conductor and producer in the opera house, and also promoted his musical ideas through the medium of writing. Berlioz knew of his conducting skills (Débats 30 September 1838); when he visited Dresden in 1843 he was very conscious of Weber’s association with the theatre there and shocked that he was not told about the presence there of Weber’s family (Débats 12 September 1843). But Berlioz’s ignorance of German may have prevented him from appreciating fully Weber’s contribution to musical history. But for his early death (at the age of 40), Weber might have become a German Berlioz before Berlioz himself, and one can only speculate on the possible consequences of the meeting between the two men that failed to happen in February 1826. A virtuoso of the orchestra more than any previous composer, Beethoven not excepted, Weber helped to show the way to Berlioz in his orchestral writing, as Berlioz acknowledged in his Treatise on Orchestration, his Memoirs (chapter 13) and elsewhere: ‘Weber’s is a different orchestra, almost as far from Beethoven’s as from that of Rossini’ (Débats, 23 June 1835; Critique musicale II p. 194). A comparison of the score of the Messe solennelle of 1824-5, generally not as yet very distinctive in its orchestral writing, with that of the Francs-Juges overture of autumn 1826, shows the distance traveled. Temperamentally there was also affinity: Weber’s music has a comparable nervous energy, quickness of response, feeling for colour, and search for variety and contrast. Comparisons between Weber and Berlioz could be multiplied. For example the scene by the Elbe in Part II of the Damnation of Faust echoes the fairy world of Oberon, in the same key (D major) as the overture to the opera; the overture based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the Queen Mab scherzo in Romeo and Juliet are similarly indebted to Oberon. The Sanctus of the Requiem carries striking echoes of Huon’s prayer in Act II of Oberon (Vater! Hör’ mich flehn zu dir! — we are grateful to John Ahouse for pointing out this example). Dido’s solemn farewell to Carthage in Act V of Les Troyens (‘Adieu, fière cité’) brings to mind Euryanthe’s valedictory Cavatina in Act III of the opera which bears her name (‘Hier dicht am Quell’); both arias are in the same key of A flat major and share the same restrained nobility of utterance. The brilliant string writing of the Corsaire overture recalls the overtures to Der Freischütz and Oberon. The overtures to Benvenuto Cellini and Beatrice and Benedict are constructed out of themes in the two operas, much like the overtures to Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon. Berlioz, always intent on seeking new paths and avoiding repetition, will also have appreciated Weber’s ability to produce in Der Freischütz and Oberon two contrasted masterpieces (but he strikingly leaves out of account Euryanthe a performance of which he did review in detail in Débats, 8 September 1857):
[Weber was] as great in Freischütz as in Oberon. But the poetry of the former is full of movement, passion, and contrasts. The supernatural leads to strange and violent effects. The melodic style, harmony, and rhythm have in combination a thunderous and incandescent power; everything conspires to arrest attention. The characters are also taken from everyday experience and have widespread appeal. The depiction of their feelings and daily lives calls for a less elevated style, which is enhanced by exquisite workmanship. This gives the work irresistible charm, even for those minds who disdain musical amusements, and to the general public it comes across in this form as the pinnacle of art and a miracle of inventiveness.
In Oberon, by contrast, though human passions play a great role, the supernatural element again predominates, though it has as its hallmark charm, repose, and freshness. Instead of monsters and dreadful apparitions there are choruses of airy spirits, sylphs, fairies, and water sprites. The language spoken by these gently smiling creatures is entirely their own. It derives its main charm from harmony, its melodic language is capriciously vague, its rhythms are unpredictable and veiled, and thus often difficult to grasp. It is a language that is all the more difficult for the general public to follow as its subtleties cannot be experienced, even by musicians, without extremely close attention combined with a lively imagination (Memoirs, chapter 16).
It may also be suggested that another contribution of Weber was to mediate Beethovenian influences to Berlioz before Berlioz had been able to discover Beethoven for himself. One of the first of Beethoven’s contemporaries to appreciate to some extent his genius, Weber admired Fidelio which he championed and produced in Prague in 1814, and again in Dresden in 1823. Weber inhabits a different world from Beethoven – the demonic and supernatural, which Beethoven had generally kept at arm’s length, play a central role in Der Freischütz. But Der Freischütz bears numerous traces of Fidelio and other works of Beethoven (the same is true of Euryanthe). In the overture to the opera, the stormy C minor music recalls for example the first and third movements of the Fifth Symphony or the Coriolanus overture, while the jubilant C major conclusion echoes, among others, the finale of the same Fifth Symphony, the Leonora overtures, and the finale of Fidelio. The sombre diminished sevenths in the slow introduction and again in the allegro find parallels in the prelude to Act II of Fidelio (cf. the timpani part in both).
For all his debt to Weber and others, Berlioz remained as always himself, and selected from his predecessors what was closest to his own temperament. One may compare the different impact of Weber on Berlioz and on Wagner. To give but one example, the rich horn-based sound of Wagner’s orchestra could be related to the quartet of horns in the opening of the Freischütz overture: but that was a sonority that the leaner sound world of Berlioz did not choose to emulate.
Weber also saw himself as champion of a national style of music: he was seeking to create a German operatic tradition, in opposition to the Italian influences which were sweeping the musical Europe of his day. Berlioz in his turn was to react against Italian influences (though he was also capable of learning from them, as shown by the Waverley overture of 1827 and parts of Benvenuto Cellini in 1838). But though he admired the old French masters such as Grétry and Méhul, he never saw himself as a standard bearer for French music specifically, and belonged rather to the ‘international’ tradition of Gluck. Unlike Debussy later, Berlioz would never have dreamed of describing himself as a ‘musicien français’. Indeed, he once referred to himself as a ‘musician three-quarters German’.
Available scores of WeberAn *asterisk indicates that the score is cited by Berlioz in his Treatise on Orchestration
Jubel Overture (duration 8'17")
— Score in large format
(file created on 1.7.2004)
— Score in pdf format*Overture Der Freischütz (duration 8'42")
— Score in large format
(file created on 11.12.2002)
— Score in pdf formatDer Freischütz, Act I Waltz (duration 1'42")
— Score in large format
(file created on 22.2.2003)
— Score in pdf formatDer Freischütz, Entr’acte to Act III (duration 1'55")
— Score in large format
(file created on 22.2.2003)
— Score in pdf formatOverture Euryanthe (duration 7'30")
— Score in large format
(file created on 1.6.2004)
— Score in pdf format*Overture Oberon (duration 8'40")
— Score in large format
(file created on 25.12.2002)
— Score in pdf formatOberon, Act II Ballet (duration 48")
— Score in large format
(file created on 1.2.2003)
— Score in pdf formatOberon, Act III March (duration 3'23")
— Score in large format
(file created on 1.2.2003)
— Score in pdf formatWeber: Invitation to the Dance, orch. Berlioz (duration 9'21")
— Score in large format
(file created on 25.09.2001)
— Score in pdf formatWeber: Invitation to the Dance, original piano version (duration 9'21")
— Score in large format
(file created on 10.10.2001)
— Score in pdf format
Notes on the available scoresJubel Overture
Composed in 1818, this festive overture resembles in its main allegro Beethoven’s overture to Fidelio, a work which Weber greatly admired; both overtures are in the same key of E major. At the end of the piece Weber reuses his orchestration of the anthem God save the king from his cantata Kampf und Sieg (Battle and Victory), a work written in 1815 in response to the Battle of Waterloo. One of Weber’s less known works, the overture is nevertheless vintage Weber and deserves to be played more frequently. This is a view that Berlioz shared. In a review of a concert at the Conservatoire in Revue et gazette musicale (12 March 1837; Critique Musicale III.75f.) Berlioz comments after a performance of the overture to Euryanthe:
Why has the Jubel overture not been played as yet, though it is fully worthy of ranking with the three other overtures of Weber which are regularly performed at the Conservatoire? We heard it last year at the Concert Musard [probably 15 and 26 March, 1836], where it made a great impression. Must the Société des concerts lag behind?
In connection with the anthem God save the king it may be recalled that Berlioz did toy at one time with setting it to music himself. In a letter to his father shortly after his arrival in London, where he had been invited by the impresario Jullien to conduct at Drury Lane Theatre, he writes (7 November 1847; CG no. 1134):
I am now going to write a piece on the theme of God Save the Queen for the day of the opening of the theatre. I had not thought of it but Jullien, who has eyes and ears for everything, would like me to repeat what happened with the Hungarians at Pesth by playing in the same way on the national feelings of the English. It is in fact the tradition for this famous anthem to figure on all great occasions of this kind.
No more is heard of this project, which evidently lapsed. One possible reason why Berlioz never took the plan any further may be suggested – Weber had already used the theme successfully in his Jubel overture, and Berlioz did not want to repeat what Weber had already done. But Berlioz did perform the overture at the end of his last concert at Exeter Hall in London in 1852, which suitably ended the concert with the national anthem (see above).
There are no metronome marks in the score. Tempi have been set as follows. Adagio, crotchet = 60; presto assai, minim = 108; andante, crotchet = 66.
Der Freischütz
Overture
This superb concert piece was a firm favourite with audiences in Berlioz’s day, and indeed with Berlioz himself, who played it at a number of his own concerts. He also cited it in his Treatise on Orchestration, in the chapter on the clarinet.
There are no metronome marks in the score. The tempi have been set as follows: adagio, crotchet = 50, then crotchet = 56 from bar 25; molto vivace, minim = 104 (without any slowing down for the second subject).
Act I, Waltz
The tempo for this piece has been set at dotted minim = 50
Entr’acte to Act III
The tempo for this piece has been set at crotchet = 100. Note: because of a bug in the software the grace notes in the parts for flute and first violin (bars 85-88) have had to be omitted.
Euryanthe
Overture
Berlioz admired this overture together with those of Weber’s two other major operas, Der Freischütz and Oberon, and one may detect its influence in the opening of his Benvenuto Cellini overture. But the opera itself – a great yet still too little known masterpiece – did not seem to hold quite the same place in his affections as the other two (see the citation above where he contrasts the two works, but without mentioning Euryanthe) – whereas it was very influential with Wagner who responded to its special chromaticism, as did Richard Strauss later (compare his tone poem Don Juan).
Weber provides metronome marks and tempo indications for the overture, though they are sometimes problematic. No slowing down from the very fast initial tempo (minim = 92) is indicated for the second subject (bars 60 and 225), though it seems unavoidable; here the second subject has been set to minim = 76, which further requires a slowing of the tempo to lead in to it, and a speeding up to return to the original tempo after. The section marked Tempo I assai moderato (bar 144) has the metronome mark minim = 88, barely slower than the original tempo. Here it has been set at minim = 76. Played at these speeds the overture is nevertheless significantly faster than in many modern performances.
Oberon
Overture
This was another favourite with concert audiences in Berlioz’s time and with Berlioz himself, and again he performed it at a number of his concerts (see above). There is an enthusiastic description of the overture at the end of one of Berlioz’s articles (see Débats 12 February 1835). The overture is cited in the Treatise on Orchestration, in the chapter on the cello.
There are no metronome marks in the score. The tempi have been set as follows: adagio sostenuto, crotchet = 40, then crotchet = 48 from bar 10; allegro con fuoco, crotchet = 120 (without any slowing down for the second subject).
Act II Ballet: the tempo has been set at crotchet = 80
Act III March: the tempo has been set at crotchet = 104
Invitation to the Dance
For notes on the Invitation to the Dance and Berlioz’s orchestration of it, see the relevant section of Berlioz Music Scores
The Hector Berlioz Website was created by Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin on 18
July 1997.
The Berlioz and Weber page was created on 11 December 2002. Revised and enlarged version on 1 July 2021.
© Michel Austin for all scores and text on this page. All rights of reproduction reserved.
Back to Berlioz:
Predecessors and Contemporaries
Back to Home Page