 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|||||
|
 |
 |
Biography of Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von WeberName: Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von WeberBirth Date: December 18, 1786 Death Date: June 5, 1826 Place of Birth: Lübeck, Germany Nationality: German Gender: Male Occupations: composer Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber The operas of Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (1786-1826) are the cornerstone of the German romantic opera, and he is often heralded as the father of musical romanticism.The son of an itinerant musical family, Carl Maria von Weber was born on Dec. 18, 1786, near Lübeck, where his father was a town musician and his mother a singer. The family was distantly connected with Constanze Weber Mozart's family. There was no justification for the claim of nobility or the use of the "von." Weber spent his early years in nearly constant travel. His father, an unscrupulous eccentric, attempted to turn him into a prodigy, but young Weber was unable to live up to these expectations.In 1796 the family settled temporarily in Salzburg, where Weber entered the school for choristers directed by Michael Haydn. Two years later Weber's mother died, and his father resumed his itinerant existence, carrying his son …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…but elsewhere he is a composer more honored by name than in performance. The overtures of his three major operas have long been repertoire items in the concert hall, but the operas themselves deserve to be better known. Weber was also a respectable prose writer, especially of music criticism, thus proving himself to be entirely in keeping with 19th-century romantic aspirations. Further Reading Good biographies of Weber are William Saunders, Weber (1940), and Lucy and Richard Poate Stebbins, The Enchanted Wanderer: The Life of Carl Maria von Weber (1940). His operas are examined in Donald J. Grout, A Short History of the Opera (1947; rev. ed. 1965).Benedict, Julius, Sir, Carl Maria von Weber, New York: AMS Press, 1980. Friese-Greene, Anthony, Weber, London; New York: Omnibus, 1991.Warrack, John Hamilton, Carl Maria von Weber, Cambridge, Eng.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Warrack, John Hamilton, The New Grove early romantic masters 2: Weber, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, New York: Norton, 1985. |