Carl Maria von Weber (1786 - 1826) - Find A Grave Memorial London Greater London, England Composer. He wrote the first important German Romantic opera, "Der Freischutz" ("The Free-Shooter", 1821). The plot, taken from an old folk tale, concerns a hunter who makes a pact with the devil for magic bullets that never miss their targets. Thoroughly German in sound and setting, it challenged the Italian style (epitomized by Rossini) that dominated European opera at the time. "Der Freischutz" was also one of the earliest music dramas to employ leitmotivs (recurring musical themes), a technique subsequently developed by Richard Wagner and his followers. Weber's other major operas were "Euryanthe" (1823) and "Oberon" (1826), though only their overtures are still heard today. His most popular instrumental work, the "Invitation to the Dance" (1819) for piano, is more often performed in an orchestral transcription by Berlioz.

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was born in Eutin, Holstein, Germany, and studied music with Michael Haydn and Abbe Vogler. He first won fame as a pianist and wrote two piano concertos (1810, 1812) and the "Konzertstuck in F" (1821) for his own performance. From 1813 to 1816 he was director of the Prague Opera and he was appointed director of the Dresden Opera in 1817. As a conductor Weber helped pioneer the use of a baton to lead the orchestra, replacing the Classical method of conducting from the piano or Concertmaster's desk. His advocacy of a German brand of opera, along with his headstrong personality, met with fierce opposition from defenders of the Italian tradition in his country. Even after "Der Freischutz" enjoyed an unprecedented success in Berlin he had to struggle to get his stage works played, and the experiences undermined his health. In 1826 Weber traveled to London to supervise the Covent Garden production of "Oberon", despite the fact that he was gravely ill with tuberculosis.

He died soon after the premiere and was interred in the chapel of London's principal Catholic church, St. Mary Moorfields. Weber's nationalist aspirations profoundly influenced future German composers. In 1844 Richard Wagner, one of Weber's successors as head of the Dresden Opera, arranged to have the composer's remains brought back to the city and buried in a grave of honor. Wagner noted in his eulogy that as a youth he had "learned to love music by way of my admiration for Weber's genius". (bio by: Bobb Edwards) Cause of death: Tuberculosis Carl Maria von Weber (Composer) - OperaAndBallet.com Hello. Returning customer? Sign in . New customer? Start here Carl Maria von Weber (Composer) Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 1786�5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school. Weber's works, especially his operas Der Freischutz, Euryanthe and Oberon greatly influenced the development of the Romantic opera in Germany. He was also an innovative composer of instrumental music.

His compositions for the clarinet, which include two concertos, a concertino, a quintet and a duo concertante, are regularly performed, while his piano music�including four sonatas, two concertos and the Konzertstuck (Concert Piece) in F minor�influenced composers such as Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn. The Konzertstuck provided a new model for the one-movement concerto in several contrasting sections (such as Liszt's, who often played the work), and was acknowledged by Igor Stravinsky as the model for his Capriccio for piano and orchestra. Weber's contribution to vocal and choral music is also significant. His body of Catholic religious music was highly popular in 19th century Germany, and he composed one of the earliest song-cycles, Die Temperamente beim Verluste der Geliebten (Four Temperaments on the Loss of a Lover).

Weber's orchestration has also been highly praised and emulated by later generations of composers - Hector Berlioz referred to him several times in his Treatise on Instrumentation while Claude Debussy remarked that the sound of the Weber orchestra was obtained through the scrutiny of the soul of each instrument. His operas influenced the work of later opera composers, especially in Germany, such as Heinrich Marschner, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Richard Wagner, as well as several nationalist 19th-century composers such as Glinka, and homage has been paid him by 20th century composers such as Debussy, Stravinsky, Gustav Mahler (who completed Weber's unfinished comic opera Die drei Pintos and made revisions of Euryanthe and Oberon) and Paul Hindemith (composer of the popular Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Weber). Weber also wrote music journalism and was interested in folksong, and learned lithography to engrave his own works.

Life Weber was born in Eutin, Holstein, the eldest of the three children of Franz Anton von Weber (who seems to have had no real claim to a "von" denoting nobility), and his second wife, Genovefa Brenner, an actress. Franz Anton started his career as a military officer in the service of the Duchy of Holstein; later he held a number of musical directorships; and in 1787 he went on to Hamburg, where he founded a theatrical company. Weber's cousin Constanze was the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Weber's father gave him a comprehensive education, which was however interrupted by the family's constant moves. In 1796, Weber continued his musical education in Hildburghausen, where he was instructed by the oboist Johann Peter Heuschkel. On March 13, 1798, Weber's mother died of tuberculosis. That same year, Weber went to Salzburg, to study with Michael Haydn; and later to Munich, to study with the singer Johann Evangelist Wallishauser, and organist J.N. Kalcher.

1798 also saw Weber's first published work, six fughettas for piano, published in Leipzig. Other compositions of that period, amongst them a mass, and his first opera, Die Macht der Liebe und des Weins (The Power of Love and Wine), are lost; but a set of Variations for the Pianoforte was later lithographed by Weber himself, under the guidance of Alois Senefelder, the inventor of the process. In 1800, the family moved to Freiberg, in Saxony, where Weber, then 14 years old, wrote an opera called Das stumme Waldmadchen (The silent forest maiden), which was produced at the Freiberg theatre. It was later performed in Vienna, Prague, and St. Petersburg. Weber also began to write articles as a critic, e.g. in the Leipziger Neue Zeitung (1801). In 1801, the family returned to Salzburg, where Weber resumed his studies with Michael Haydn.

He later continued studying in Vienna with Abbe Vogler (Georg Joseph Vogler), founder of three important music schools (in Mannheim, Stockholm, and Darmstadt); another famous pupil of Vogler was Giacomo Meyerbeer, who became a close friend of Weber. In 1803, Weber's opera, Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn (Peter Schmoll and his Neighbors) was produced in Augsburg, and gave Weber his first success as a popular composer. Vogler, impressed by his pupil's talent, recommended him to the post of Director at the Opera in Breslau (1806), and from 1807 to 1810, Weber held a post at the court of the Duke of Wurttemberg, in Stuttgart. He left his post in Breslau in a fit of frustration, he was on one occasion arrested for debt and fraud and expelled from Wurttemberg, and was involved in various scandals. However he remained successful as a composer, and also wrote a quantity of religious music, mainly for the Catholic mass. This however earned him the hostility of reformers working for the re-establishment of traditional chant in liturgy.

In 1810, Weber visited several cities throughout Germany; from 1813 to 1816 he was director of the Opera in Prague; from 1816 to 1817 he worked in Berlin, and from 1817 onwards he was director of the prestigious Opera in Dresden, working hard to establish a German Opera, in reaction to the Italian Opera which had dominated the European music scene since the 18th century. On 4 November 1817, he married Caroline Brandt, a singer who created the title role of Silvana.

The successful premiere of Der Freischutz on 18 June 1821 in Berlin led to performances all over Europe; it remains the only one of his operas still in the regular repertoire.[citation needed] The colorful harmonies and orchestration, use of popular themes from central European folk music, and the gloomy (gothic) libretto, complete with an appearance of the Devil in a nocturnal forest, have all helped to ensure its popularity.[citation needed] On the very morning of the premiere, Weber finished his Konzertstuck for Piano and Orchestra in F minor, and he premiered it a week later. In 1823, Weber composed the opera Euryanthe to a mediocre libretto, but containing much rich music, the overture of which in particular anticipates Wagner. In 1824, Weber received an invitation from Covent Garden, London, to compose and produce Oberon, based on Christoph Martin Wieland's poem of the same name. Weber accepted the invitation, and in 1826 he travelled to England, to finish the work and conduct the premiere on April 12.

Other famous works by Weber include: Invitation to the Dance (later orchestrated by Berlioz); Polacca Brillante; two symphonies, a concertino and two concertos for clarinet, a quintet for clarinet and strings, and a concertino for horn (during which the performer is asked to simultaneously produce two notes by humming while playing - a technique known in brass playing as multiphonics). Weber was already suffering from tuberculosis when he visited London; he died there during the night of 4 to June 5, 1826. Weber was 39 years old. He was buried in London, but 18 years later, his remains were transferred on an initiative of Richard Wagner and re-buried in Dresden. His unfinished opera Die drei Pintos ('The Three Pintos') was originally given by Weber's widow to Meyerbeer for completion; it was eventually completed by Gustav Mahler, who conducted the first performance in this form in Leipzig on January 20, 1888. Weber's grave in Dresden. Legacy Weber's mastery of the orchestra was equalled in his time only by Beethoven and Schubert.

During the 19th century, his 'Polacca Brillante', 'Invitation to the Dance, Second Piano Sonata and Konzertstuck for piano and orchestra were frequently heard. Liszt frequently performed Weber's music and made editions of his piano sonatas. Other 19th-century admirers included Wagner, Meyerbeer and Berlioz. Weber's piano music all but disappeared from the repertoire, but there has been a revival of interest in these works in recent times. There are several recordings of the major works for the solo piano (including complete recordings of the piano sonatas and the shorter piano pieces, by Garrick Ohlsson, Alexander Paley and others), and there are recordings of the individual sonatas by Claudio Arrau (1st Sonata), Alfred Brendel (2nd Sonata), Sviatoslav Richter (3rd Sonata) and Leon Fleischer (4th Sonata). The Invitation to the Dance, although better known in Berlioz's orchestration (as part of the ballet music for a Paris production of Der Freischutz), has long been played and recorded by pianists (e.g. Benno Moiseiwitsch [in Karl Tausig's arrangement]).

Invitation to the Dance also served as the thematic basis for Benny Goodman's swing tune Lets Dance. His orchestral music, clarinet works, the opera Der Freischutz (his most famous composition), as well as the overtures to Oberon and Euryanthe are still performed. The last two operas have, in fact, been performed more and more often since the 1990s. Feedback If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us . Our Help pages often contain the answers to your questions. If it don't answer your question, please fill in brief form below. Name: Overlooked Operas: Weber's Der Freischütz - WQXR Overlooked Operas: Weber's Der Freischütz Monday, July 08, 2013 - 03:00 PM By Fred Plotkin Robert Wilson's production of 'Der Freischütz' Baden-Baden, 2009 (Lesley Leslie-Spinks) Recently, I was asked by a caller to the Saturday Operavore radio program to name operas I think deserve revival, especially in the United States.

It should not surprise you that I have such a list and there are quite a few names on it. There are at least two ways to compile such a list. One is to come up with names of works I like but have not seen lately. Another is to think of works by composers I like but have not heard. Then, there are certain works that are important in the history and development of opera that should be seen and heard by anyone interested in the art form. Der Freischütz (1821), by Carl Maria von Weber, belongs on all of these lists. Even though important German-language operas came before it, including Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (1791) and Beethoven’s Fidelio (1805), this work is really the one that set German opera on its own course, influencing all that followed—especially Richard Wagner. The Metropolitan Opera has done only 30 performances of Der Freischütz since 1884. The last one was in 1972. Last January, after walking in Wagner’s footsteps in Dresden and Leipzig, I stopped in Berlin for a night to see Der Freischütz in the city where it had its premiere.

The performance was by the Staatsoper unter den Linden, the great old company that resides in the eastern part of the city but is in exile at the Schiller Theater in the west while its historic theater is being restored. Berlin was the perfect place to see Der Freischütz because the literary and cultural underpinnings of the opera are second nature to the audience. It is like seeing Pagliacci in Naples or Die Fledermaus in Vienna. My belief that Der Freischütz has been unjustly ignored outside of the German-speaking world was reinforced when I had a conversation with a board member of a major opera company. General managers often ask board members to underwrite productions, and this gentleman was asked by the head of the company to name a work he considered worth supporting. His response was Der Freischutz, which apparently was met with puzzlement and not much enthusiasm by the general manager. How unfortunate. Carl Maria von Weber was born in 1786 in Holstein, far northern Germany, and died in 1826 in London when he was too sick to make the trip home to Dresden.

His short life perfectly spanned the era from 18th century Classicism in the vein of Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven and Schubert to the Romanticism of later Beethoven and Schubert as well as Chopin, Schumann, Berlioz and, eventually, Wagner. This was also the era when Italian bel canto composers such as Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini, whose last work was the largely Romantic Guillaume Tell, created Italian-language (and the occasional French) operas that were audience favorites. There was no one writing operas that had popular or spiritual appeal to German speakers. Der Freischütz, often referred to in English as "The Magic Marksman," draws from German Romanticism’s use of the supernatural as a threatening presence, especially when it emanates from the forests found at the edge of villages. Weber introduced hunter’s horns and adroitly used various instruments in the orchestra to depict these natural and supernatural phenomena, and the chorus is deployed to spooky effect as the sounds of scary spirits. Weber used other instruments, such as the clarinet, to express the emotions and frustrations of young, sentimental love.

I think that Rossini would not have taken the musical and dramatic risks he did in Guillaume Tell had Der Freischütz not existed. A Show-Biz Family Weber was part of a family of singers (including his mother) and show people of one kind or another. His father always sought ways to make this troupe more appealing to audiences. The most famous example was adding the von to the family name to suggest a link to royalty or nobility that absolutely did not exist. Their lives were a bit rough-and-tumble but also gave young Carl Maria an intimate knowledge of life on and behind the scenes of a stage. He showed musical prowess early on and his family attempted to capitalize on that by making him something of a novelty item as they journeyed through Germany and Austria. In effect, he would be presented as a Mozart-type prodigy. He was encouraged to write an opera, or a singspiel (a German-language entertainment in words and music that extended back a century and whose most accomplished exemplars were Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio). By the way, his cousin Kostanze Weber became Mozart’s wife.

Weber's first opera, composed in 1800 when he was 14, was Die Waldmädchen (The Forest Maiden), parts of which survive. It was, history tells us, not a success. In 1803 came Peter Schmoll und siene Nachbarn (Peter Schmoll and his Neighbors), which apparently was better received. The picaresque adolescence of Carl Maria von Weber, with too many twists and turns to recount here, brings to mind what the story of Candide might have been if that gullible young man had been a musician. Despite the family’s peregrinations and somewhat Bohemian lifestyle, Weber's father made sure he received a broad education that included literature and art. He had several music teachers. He met composers, including Meyerbeer, and musicians of all types. He met royal personages who might have been in charge of a small fief or a larger realm. He came into the employ of one of them but ran up such massive debts that, after being imprisoned, he and his father fled one night.

One person he met who merits special mention was Heinrich Bärmann, a clarinet virtuoso with whom Weber felt a strong musical connection and for whom he was motivated to compose six important works, including two concertos that are part of every clarinetist’s repertoire. He and Bärmann performed and toured together and, alongside this fine musician, Weber came to experience audiences and performing in newer, more mature ways. He paid constant attention to aesthetics of all kinds. As Berlioz and Wagner would later do, Weber had a propensity for writing criticism and essays that are fascinating for those who care about art but did not necessarily ingratiate these composers to colleagues and to powerful people who might provide financial support. In his mid to late 20s Weber did have important positions conducting opera in Berlin and Prague, although his free-thinking ways came to alienate the powers-that-were. In Berlin he developed a strong sense of his German identity, represented by an attraction to nature and a certain kind of emotional simplicity that was seen as a virtue.

Painters and poets did not sing the praises of German superiority, as Wagner would later be seen to do, but rather as saying that Germans had qualities that set them apart from other peoples such as the British, French and Italians. Austria then was the seat of a large empire whose principal language was German, while the many lands, duchies and citadels that became Germany around 1870 were often at odds with one another. An artistic movement, which came to be called Romanticism, was driven in part by the ambitions of artists of all kinds to create a vision of a Germany unified not only by language but shared values. In Berlin and Prague, Weber took more control of opera productions, whether of his own works (he had not yet created his masterpieces) or, more often, those of other composers. He liked to publish essays about the operas in question, believing that it helped prepare audiences for what they would see and hear. He also believed in casting singers who would make a balanced ensemble, rather than surrounding one or two stars with performers with limited gifts.

He believed that opera productions should have a visual component that did not have to be lavish but which served as another element—along with music-making, acting and engagement with the text—in the story-telling that is opera. Supernatural Thriller Weber wound up in Dresden in 1817, newly married. The city had an Italian-language opera house where works by the bel canto composers were in favor. Weber was asked to head a German-language opera house that was expected to rival the Italian one. His study of aesthetics, of German folk tales and his interest in the supernatural were brought to bear on Der Freischütz and, to a lesser extent, his final works, Euryanthe and Oberon. Der Freischütz with a libretto by Friedrich Kind, was his masterpiece. It may be the first German opera to be free of Italian and French influences. Audiences responded to themes and language that was familiar to them. The notion of including the supernatural was not new. Mozart did it in Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte and many later composers did so as well, none more so than Wagner. Hector Berlioz clearly felt its influence in composing the Symphonie Fantastique.

When you watch the opera, think also about how this opera foreshadows much of what followed. Mythology lends itself to music-drama, as German composers such as Wagner and Strauss revealed. Enjoy this complete performance of Der Freischütz: Tags: Top 10 All-Time Worst Opera Librettos: Part 2 | San Francisco Classical Voice San Francisco Classical Voice So you think Victor Herbert’s Natoma (1911) (number 6 in last week’s list ) is as bad as it gets in operatic librettese? Read on, pilgrim. 5. Merlin (Hack Arthur Division) In the 1890s, the great pianist-composer Isaac Albéniz was living in London. His single patron in England, Francis Money-Coutts, the heir to a banking fortune (no, I’m not making that up), was also an amateur poet and thus a collaboration was born. Money-Coutts wrote the texts of a number of Albéniz songs, as well as the libretto for a comic piece, Pepita Jimenez, which shows that Albéniz’ musicianship could transfer to the stage very effectively.

Then the pair turned to Money-Coutts’ secret obsession, a trilogy of operas on the Arthurian legends, dipped in Wagner sauce. The first of them, Merlin, follows Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur except for the manner of Merlin’s final imprisonment. In this version, Merlin visits gnomes to steal their gold, the better to break up the Arthur–Guenevere engagement. (OK, I don’t get it either.) He needs to enchant them via dancing, so he calls Nivian, here a Saracen slave-girl. Cue dancing gnomes (and Moorish nymphs — Nivian calls for backup, I believe). Long story short: The ploy works, but Nivian also enchants Merlin and begs him, “I pray, grant me to hold your rod.” So he gives her his magic wand (why, what were you thinking), which she promptly uses to imprison Merlin forever in the gnomes’ cave. Related Article All Hail (Or to Hell With) Poor Opera Librettos March 27, 2012 The real sin of the libretto is in the actual lines.

They have to be in the running for worst librettese, and would have Thomas Malory spinning in his grave: “Orgulous boys with spite so dreadly/Dare to say what they list to say!” The good thing is, the syntax and vocabulary are so archaic that they would never be understood in a theater. Life really is too short to waste: Albéniz died in 1909, four years after giving up on the second of the Arthur trilogy operas. He wrote Iberia, his greatest musical testament, instead. Merlin languished for 100 years before being resuscitated by the musicologist José del Eusebio, who also got the other Albéniz operas performed. As you might expect, there’s good music in it, but not enough to save it from the curse of Money-Coutts’ amateur verses. 4. Oberon (Kitchen Sink Division) Despite the fact that he was dying of tuberculosis, Carl Maria von Weber accepted an opera commission in 1825 from the famed English actor/manager Charles Kemble.

Fresh off the libretto-disabled Euryanthe (1823), Weber must have thought that his dying would be the best way to ensure a smashing theatrical success. Boy, was he wrong. The source material for this opera was a 1780 German epic poem, also named Oberon, by Christian Martin Wieland. The poem mixes up a medieval geste, Huon de Bordeaux, with an Oriental fantasy as well as Oberon and Puck from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, who appear to have crash-landed with no idea how to get out of the story. J.R. Planché’s libretto only makes their problem worse: Fatal vow! — not even slumber Can thy victim’s torture tame! Of my woes it swells the number Of my wrath it feeds the flame! Yet Oberon’s quarrel with Titania is only a framing device, so he and Puck quickly get on with the business of moving the so-called plot along.

They find Huon the hero tramping through the forest: “Proud of my father’s name/The only mistress I adored,/My only passion — fame, fame, fame!” (“If I only had a brain, brain, brain”?) — and whisk him off to Baghdad to romance and abduct the Caliph’s daughter, Rezia. Then they have the lucky pair shipwrecked and attacked by pirates, before putting them to sleep so that the elves can enjoy a divertissement of mermaids and fairies. Let’s not get into Act 3, because it’s too ridiculous. From his sickbed, Weber raised a few objections — too many characters who don’t sing, no music cues at the big dramatic moments. Wasn’t this bound to weaken an opera? Well, you see, the English don’t really like opera, replied the energetic Planché. Weber died in England, aged 39, barely a month after the premiere of Oberon, in 1826. And no, the news of that event could not save the opera. Weber is remembered today for his instrumental music and as the composer of Der Freischutz, which shows what he could do with a first-class libretto.

3. Murderer, Hope of Women (Paranoid Fantasy Division) Worst. Title. Ever. What kind of misogynistic freak would come up with such a play?! Meet Oskar Kokoschka, a misogynistic freak hailing from Vienna, Austrian Empire. Oskar enjoys painting anorexic models, and expressionism. After his affair with (who else?) Alma Mahler came to an end, Kokoschka had a life-size doll made of her but found that it could not fulfill his obsessive sexual fantasies. He repeatedly painted and sketched the doll for a few years and then decided to destroy it, since all of Dresden (where he was now an art professor) was talking about it. So he threw a party, got drunk, and at dawn took the doll out into the garden where he beheaded it and broke a bottle of red wine over the head. Seems Kokoschka was just the type of guy to be struck by fellow-misogynist Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character (1903), a mythology of human sexuality in which maleness is presented as spiritual and positive, and femaleness as negation.

Weininger was a brilliant student who, in the same year as publishing this book, committed suicide, aged 23, in the rooming house where Beethoven had died. The notoriety surrounding his act made the book a success. Kokoschka’s play, performed in 1909, is an allegory of the sex act based on Weininger’s mythology. If you guessed that it’s pretty dark and feral, that’s good — you probably won’t be shooting yourself anytime soon. So why did Paul Hindemith decide to set this tripe as an opera in 1919? Because dark and feral were just the qualities a young modernist would be looking for in a libretto back then. Shocking the bourgeoisie bought you great press at the time, and a riot had even greeted the premiere of Kokoschka’s play. But at one act, it is rather short, so Hindemith later composed Sancta Susanna, based on another bad play about sexual hysteria in a convent. Luckily for him, and us, Hindemith soon stopped working the Viennese-expressionist vein, and became a much more listenable composer — eventually a great one. 2.

The Story of a Real Man (Socialist Realism Division) This slot in the list properly belongs to Andrei Zhdanov, the secretary of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee, with an able assist from Joseph Stalin. Without them, The Story of a Real Man would not have come into being, at least in its present form. Sergei Prokofiev composed this opera partly because he hoped to see his War and Peace grand opera performed, whose second act had been censored by the authorities with no reason given. In 1948, he was denounced (along with Shostakovich and Khatchaturian) for excessive formalism by Zhdanov’s arts committee, so Real Man also offered a way to rehabilitate himself with the regime. Prokofiev would be very careful to tow Zhdanov’s new line. The libretto by Prokofiev and his wife, Mira Mendelson, is based on a true story, recounted in a popular novella, in which a young fighter pilot who has lost both legs is inspired to return to active duty, with new prosthetic limbs.

As an example of the total effort it took for Russia to defeat Nazi Germany, this could actually be a good libretto. It’s not, because of its propaganda-heavy storytelling and dialogue, much of it lifted straight from the novella. The key scene, as translated by Richard Taruskin in his article in the Grove Music Dictionary, occurs in a convalescent ward when a kindly commissar hands the airman a story about a Russian World War I ace who returned to combat after losing a leg. To each objection the pilot makes, the commissar responds, upliftingly, “But you’re a Soviet man!” The creators were careful to fill the libretto with folksongs and choruses, just as the Communist Party’s “Resolution on Music” required. All to no avail: The work was suppressed, Taruskin surmises, because of this “wealth of genre detail at the expense of heroic rhetoric.” Such arbitrary decisions were the hallmark of Soviet arts policy, indeed of life under Communism. For a tainted artist like Prokofiev, there could be no victories. 1.

Das Opfer (The sacrifice) (Flightless Waterfowl Division) As a student of Arnold Schoenberg and his 12-tone composition method, Winfried Zillig must have been aware that his career under the Nazi regime might be short and undistinguished. Actually, he prospered as an opera conductor and as a composer, with a number of well-received premieres. The Sacrifice (1937) was a conspicuous failure, not because of its music but because of a bizarre libretto that wins (against heavy competition) our award for Worst Opera Libretto Ever. The story is based on the ill-fated Scott expedition to the South Pole in 1912. Beset by extreme bad weather, the entire group perished of starvation and cold (though Scott became a hugely popular figure, posthumously.) So that’s problem number one, which Zillig and his librettist, Reinhard Goering, solved by having some members of the expedition survive. In their version, only one team member, Oates, dies, sacrificing his life by walking into the wilderness, so that the others might live (hence the title). But then they took a step toward the demented.

In an attempt to curry favor with the Nazi regime, the creators decided that the Anglo-Saxon heroes must conquer, not just nature, but the envious subhuman races, as well. But of course none of those happen to be living at the South Pole. This is where the penguins come into it. Yes, these vicious birds have it in for the brave explorers, and they express their rage in several choruses. Bad weather is their ally, and when things look darkest for the expedition, they joyfully dance the “Siegtanze der Pinguinestamm” (Victory dance of the penguin race). Of course, in the end, their hopes are dashed and the superiority of man over flightless waterfowl is affirmed It’s too bad, in a way, that this opera is unrevivable: It would be fun to see one of our fine baritones, say Nathan Gunn, beset by angry birds. But I’m afraid we’ll just have to be satisfied with the story, which I got from my grad-school apartment-mate, Gregory Dubinsky, whose dissertation research on 12-tone music between the World Wars turned up more than a few fascinating details.

He may never make a million dollars, but he’s got at least one story he can dine out on. Michael Zwiebach is the senior editor/ content manager for SFCV. He assigns all articles and content, manages the writing staff and does editing. A member of SFCV from the beginning, Michael holds a Ph.D. in music history from the University of California, Berkeley. Carl Maria von Weber | German composer and musician | Britannica.com Carl Maria von Weber Alternative Titles: Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst, Freiherr von Weber, Karl Maria von Weber Carl Maria von Weber Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst, Freiherr von Weber Karl Maria von Weber Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Carl Maria von Weber, in full Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst, Freiherr (baron) von Weber (born Nov.

18, 1786, Eutin , Holstein [Germany]—died June 5, 1826, London , Eng.), German composer and opera director during the transition from Classical to Romantic music , noted especially for his operas Der Freischütz (1821; The Freeshooter , or, more colloquially, The Magic Marksman), Euryanthe (1823), and Oberon (1826). Der Freischütz, the most immediately and widely popular German opera that had been written to date, established German Romantic opera. Carl Maria von Weber. © Photos.com/Thinkstock Weber was born into a musical and theatrical family. His father, Franz Anton, who seems to have wished upon the family the baronial von to which it had in fact no title, was a musician and soldier of fortune who had formed a small traveling theatre company. His mother, Genovefa, was a singer; his uncles, aunts, and brothers were to some degree involved in music and the stage. Carl Maria was a sickly child, having been born with a diseased hip that caused him to limp throughout his life.

When he began to show signs of musical talent, his ambitious father set him to work under various teachers in towns visited by the family troupe in the hope that he might prove a Mozartean prodigy. Among these instructors was Michael Haydn , the younger brother of the composer Joseph Haydn . Under Haydn, Weber wrote and published his Opus 1, Sechs Fughetten (1798). The troupe paused briefly in Munich , where Weber learned the art of lithography under its inventor, Aloys Senefelder . Moving on to Freiberg , the Webers planned to set up a lithographic works in order to propagate the young composer’s music. The scheme fell through; but meanwhile Weber had composed his first opera, Das Waldmädchen (“ The Forest Maiden”), which partially survives. Staged at Freiberg in 1800, it was a failure. On a return visit to Salzburg , Weber completed his first wholly surviving opera, Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn, which also failed when it was produced in Augsburg in 1803.

Weber resumed his studies under the influential Abbé Vogler, through whom he was appointed musical director at Breslau (now Wrocław, Pol.) in 1804. After many difficulties, occasioned by the inexperience of a young director in putting through reforms, and a near-fatal accident in which he permanently impaired his voice when he swallowed some engraving acid, Weber was forced to resign. He was rescued by an appointment as director of music to Duke Eugen of Württemberg , for whose private orchestra he wrote two symphonies. They are attractive, inventive works, but the symphony, with its dependence on established forms, was not the natural medium of a composer who sought to bring Romantic music to a freer form derived from literary, poetic, and pictorial ideas. Britannica Stories Leap Second Weber was next a secretary in the court of King Frederick I of Württemberg. Here he lived so carelessly and ran up so many debts that, after a brief imprisonment, he was banished. The principal fruits of these years (1807–10) were his Romantic opera Silvana (1810), songs, and piano pieces.

Weber and his father fled to Mannheim , where he was, in his own words, “born for the second time.” He made friends with an influential circle of artists, from whom he stood out as a talented pianist and guitarist; he was also remarkable for his theories on the Romantic movement . Moving on to Darmstadt , he met Vogler again, as well as the German opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer . From this period came principally the Grand Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Opus 11, for piano, and the delightful one-act opera Abu Hassan (1811). Music: Fact or Fiction? Disappointed in not winning a post in Darmstadt, Weber traveled on to Munich, where his friendship with the clarinet virtuoso Heinrich Bärmann led to the writing of the Concertino, Opus 26, and two brilliant, inventive clarinet concerti. In all, he was to write six clarinet works for Bärmann, with whom he also toured.

The clarinet remained, with the horn, one of the favourite instruments of a composer whose ear for new sounds and new combinations of instruments was to make him one of the greatest orchestrators in the history of music. Weber was also one of music’s great piano virtuosos; his own music reflects something of the brilliance and melancholy and exhibitionist charm described by his contemporaries when he performed it. From 1809 to 1818 Weber also wrote a considerable number of reviews, poems, and uncompromising, stringent music criticisms . All his work, music, and critical writings furthered the ideals of Romanticism as an art in which feeling took precedence over form and heart over head. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Appointed conductor of the opera at Prague in 1813, after a period in Berlin during which he caught the patriotic fervour of the day in some stirring choruses and songs, Weber was at last able to put his theories into full practice. His choice of works showed his care for Romantic ideals, and his choice of artists showed his concern for a balanced ensemble, rather than a group of virtuosos.

Furthermore, by publishing introductory articles to his performances, he saw to it that his audiences were carefully prepared. Obstacles again appeared: a stormy love affair left him disconsolate, and opposition to his reforms forced him to resign in 1816. His reputation by now, however, was such that he was able to secure an appointment as director of the German opera at Dresden , beginning in 1817. The same year he married one of his former singers, Caroline Brandt. Carl Maria von Weber featured on a cigarette trading card. © Hemera/Thinkstock Dresden was a city more backward than most in Germany , and it had a flourishing rival Italian opera. As the prophet of a German national opera, Weber was faced with even greater difficulties. Happily married, he applied himself energetically to his work, assuming full control over all aspects of the operatic production. No detail escaped him: he supervised repertory, recruitment, casting, scenery, lighting, and production, as well as the orchestra and the singers, taking care to see that every performer fully understood the words and plot of each opera.

These tasks left him little time for writing operas himself, however, especially in view of the inexorable advance of his tuberculosis . He nevertheless produced several works during this period, including the last of his four piano sonatas, many songs and shorter piano solos, such as the famous Invitation to the Dance (1819), and the Konzertstück, Opus 79 (1821), for piano and orchestra. Carl Maria von Weber, drawing by Christian Hornemann, 1820; in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, … Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz Connect with Britannica Influential, Famous Composers Who Died Young - Page 2 11. Franz Schubert Referred to as the "master of song" of which he wrote more than 200. Some of his well known works are: "Serenade," "Ave Maria," "Who is Sylvia?" and "C Major symphony." He died on November 19, 1828 in Vienna at the age of 31. More » continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States Robert Schumann.

Public Domain Image from Wikimedia Commons 12. Robert Schumann German composer who served as the voice of other Romantic composers. Among his well known works are "Piano Concerto in A minor," "Arabesque in C Major Op. 18," "Child Falling Asleep" and "The Happy Peasant". He died on July 29, 1856 before the age of 46. One of the factors believed to have caused his death was the mercury treatments he underwent when he was in an asylum. More » 13. Kurt Weill German composer of the 20th century known for his collaborations with writer Bertolt Brecht. He wrote operas, cantata, music for plays, concert music, film and radio scores. His major works include "Mahagonny," "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny" and "Die Dreigroschenoper." The song "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" from "Die Dreigroschenoper" became a huge hit and remains popular to this day. He died barely a month before his 50th birthday on April 3, 1950 in New York, U.S.A.

More » 14. Carl Maria von Weber Composer, piano virtuoso, orchestrator, music critic and opera director who helped establish the German Romantic and nationalist movements. His most famous work is the opera "Der Freischütz" (The Free Shooter) which opened on June 8, 1821 in Berlin. He died at the age of 39 on June 5, 1826 in London, England due to tuberculosis. More » Carl WEBER Home | Encylopaedia | Composers | WEBER Carl WEBER (1786-1826) Carl Maria von Weber was a German composer, conductor and a very competent pianist born in Eutin, near L?beck. He was born into a family of musicians and his cousin Constanze was married to Mozart . He was very versatile and could easily be called the first romantic composer. He became known for composing music drawn from Italian influences and successfully combined folk tunes into his classical music. He was highly regarded as a music critic and travelled widely throughout his career.

He wrote his first opera in Munich when he was only 11 years old and he spent a brief period studying with Joseph Haydn's brother Michael in Salzburg until he was 12. The manuscript of his first opera was destroyed by fire shortly after it's completion. His second opera was performed when he was 14. He travelled to Vienna in 1803 and became a pupil of Vogler and he was appointed Kappellmeister at the Theatre in Breslau before he was 18. Whilst in Breslau, he fell ill after accidently swallowing some engraver's acid. In 1807 he held a position at the Stuttgart court where he played piano and wrote many songs, chamber music and piano pieces. He left in 1810 and visited Heidelberg, Darmstadt, Munich, Prague, Dresden, Weimer and Berlin. He held many musical positions throughout his career including the director of Prague opera in 1813. Whilst in this position, he enlarged the repertory and began to write newspaper essays to try and attract audiences. He became interested in Mozart and contemporary French opera during this period.

He wrote over 300 works in his career including the operas "Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn" (1801), "Silvana" (1808), and "Abu Hassan" (1810). In 1816 he became the royal Kappelmeister in Dresden. His music reflected the new nationalistic German feeling and whilst in Dresden he attempted to develop a German national opera company. Weber also gave respectability to the waltz by composing the "invitation" (1819). During his adult life, he concentrated mainly on romantic Opera. He was amongst the first composers to stand up in front of the orchestra and use a form of baton. His most famous opera was his seventh "Der Freischutz" (1821) meaning "The Freeshooter", which made him arguably the most popular composer of his time. It was first performed in Berlin in 1821 and went on to be performed many times throughout Germany within a year of it's premiere before moving onto the rest of Europe. He made use of German folk music as well as the more traditional Italian form and it became a sort of German national anthem.

None of his other subsequent operas were as successful as "Der Freischutz". While composing his opera "Euryanthe" (1823) in Vienna, he met Beethoven . Weber died relatively young of Tuberculosis shortly after the premiere of "Oberon" (1826) in London. He died far away from his home and was initially buried in Moorfields Chapel. Richard Wagner arranged for his body to be shipped back to Germany in 1844 and he was then buried in Dresden Catholic cemetery. He died leaving a musical legacy that influenced many other composers including Wagner and Debussy . He contributed significantly to piano music and the concerto. Essential Albums:

Question: Which composer, whose most famous opera is 'Der Freischutz,' died of tuberculosis in London in 1826?
Answer: Carl Maria von Weber