(A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com,"...)
A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com," a website where "cybervisitors" can get answers to questions that trouble them. But when one questioner asks the true meaning of Christmas, the kids seek to unravel the mystery by journeying back through the prophecies of the Old Testament. What they find is a series of "S" words that reveal a "spectacular story!" With creative characters, humorous dialogue and great music, The "S" Files is a children's Christmas musical your kids will love performing.
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First performed in Berlin in 1821, Der Freischütz is re...)
First performed in Berlin in 1821, Der Freischütz is recognized as the wellspring of German Romantic opera. It was immensely influential in subject matter, atmosphere, orchestration, and other aspects on all later German operatic writing, and it is still quite popular.
The composition of Der Freischütz occupied Weber for an unusually long time. He started in July 1819 and did not complete the work until May 1880. Based on the short story "Der Freischütz" in the Gespensterbuch (Book of Ghosts) by August Apel and Friedrich Laun, its highly romantic aspects include a dark, mysterious forest setting, populated by lusty huntsmen and abounding in evil and magical overtones.
This edition reproduces the full orchestral score in a clear, modern engraving for easy reading and study, with large legible notation. Do not confuse this with a piano rendering; it is a full orchestral score. In addition to its obvious uses for study, this score is also indispensable for anyone listening to recordings. In no other manner can the listener keep full awareness of the orchestral richness of this opera. The complete German text, including all spoken dialogue, accompanies the music.
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, and was one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.
Background
Weber was born on either 18 or 19 November, 1786 in Eutin, Bishopric of Lübeck, the eldest of the three children of Franz Anton von Weber (de) and his second wife, Genovefa Weber, a Viennese singer. The "von" was an affectation; Franz Anton von Weber was not actually an aristocrat.
Both his parents were Catholic and originally came from the far south of Germany.
His father, Baron Franz Anton von Weber, a military8 The original play, Gismonde of Salerne, was by five authors, and was produced in the Queen's presence at the Inner Temple in 1568.
Education
The effect of this restless life upon the little Cari Maria's health and education was deplorable; but, as he accompanied his father everywhere, he became familiarized with the stage from his earliest infancy, and thus gained an amount of dramatic experience that laid the foundation of his future greatness.
In furtherance of this scheme, the child was taught to sing and place his fingers upon the pianoforte almost as soon as he could speak, though he was unable to walk until he was four years old.
Soon afterwards he began to play successfully in public, and his father compelled him to write incessantly.
In 1801, the family returned to Salzburg, where Weber resumed his studies with Michael Haydn.
He later continued studying in Vienna with Georg Joseph Vogler, known as Abbe 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.
Career
Franz Anton hoped to see him develop into an infant prodigy, like his cousin Mozart, whose marvellous career was then rapidly approaching its close.
Franz Anton had misappropriated a large sum of money placed in the young secretary's hands for the purpose of clearing a mortgage upon one of the duke's estates.
Both father and son were charged with embezzlement, and, on the 9th of February 1810, they were arrested at the theatre, during a rehearsal of Sylvana, and thrown by the king's order into prison.
These hindrances, howrever, did not prevent him from beginning a new opera called Rubezahl, the libretto of which was 44 romantic" to the last degree, and Weber worked at it enthusiastically, but it was never completed, and little of it has been preserved beyond a quintet and the masterly overture, which, re-written in 1811 under the title of Der Beherrscher der Geister, now ranks among its author's finest instrumental compositions.
World fame came to him in 1821 after the performance of his opera Der FreischützFreischutz in Berlin.
Within a year and a half the work was played fifty times in the Prussian capital alone, and as early as 1825 a performance took place in New York.
In the spring of 1826 Weber went to London to conduct his opera Oberon, which he had written for Covent Garden.
As he stated in a letter to the Vienna publisher Artaria, he could "engrave music on stone in a manner quite equal to the finest English copperplate engraving. "
Weber's Der Freischutz is the first important Romantic work in the field of opera.
However, the composer, who at this time was already seriously ill, was not quite equal to the ambitious task he had set himself.
Apart from its overture, the opera had only a short-lived success.
The same may be said of Oberon (1826), the text of which is partly based on Shakespeare's The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
In spite of its delightful descriptions of elfland, its lovely picture of nature, and the fascinating song of the mermaids in the second act, only the inspired introduction is still played.
Its fantastic story, based on an old fairy tale, and its emphasis on German folklore were well suited to Weber's talent.
Its stirring music is strongly dramatic and vividly orchestrated.
The overture, which resembles a tone poem, and the eerie evocation of the supernatural in the scene where the villainous Caspar meets the huntsman Max in the wolf's glen contain some of the most inspired music of German opera.
Der Freischutz was first performed in Berlin on June 14, 1821, and so appealed to the German temperament of the era that it sprang into popularity overnight and created a new kind of romantic national opera that supplanted the Italian form in Central Europe.
The title means literally "The Freeshooter, " that is, a marksman who uses magic bullets.
By securing another victim, however, the moment of surrender to Satan could be deferred.
The plot turns on the attempt of the villainous Caspar (bass), who has sold himself to Satan, to get this substitute by persuading the huntsman Max (tenor) to invoke supernatural aid for the trial shot on which promotion to head forester and the hand of young Agathe (soprano) depend.
Max agrees and the magic bullets are cast in a scene of lively supernatural fury, but he is brought to his senses when his seventh bullet strikes his sweetheart, guided by the Black Huntsman, Samiel (speaking part), who is the Evil One himself.
Fortunately Agathe has been protected by the counsel of an old hermit, however, and is unhurt, while Caspar, who has actually received the shot, is carried off to damnation.
The good Prince Ottokar (tenor) declares that no man's livelihood should rest on the outcome of the traditional single shot; it is therefore abolished and the prince promises Max a second chance.
Weber was already suffering from tuberculosis when he visited London. He conducted the premiere and twelve sold-out performances of Oberon in London during April and in May, despite his rapidly worsening health, he continued to fulfill commitments for private concerts and benefits.
He died during the night of 4/5 June 1826 at the home of his good friend Sir George Smart where he was staying while in London.
He was buried in Dresden Catholic cemetery on 15 December after funeral oration by Wagner and the perf.
Achievements
Weber's operas Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon greatly influenced the development of the Romantische Oper (Romantic opera) in Germany.
His operas influenced the work of later opera composers, especially in Germany, such as Marschner, Meyerbeer and Wagner, as well as several nationalist 19th-century composers such as Glinka. Homage has been paid to Weber by 20th-century composers such as Debussy, Stravinsky, Mahler (who completed Weber's unfinished comic opera Die drei Pintos and made revisions of Euryanthe and Oberon) and Hindemith (composer of the popular Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber).
Among Weber's nondramatic works, the following should be mentioned: two concertos and the frequently played Konzertstuck for piano and orchestra; four sonatas; several sets of variations; and the famous Invitation to the Dance for piano solo, later orchestrated by Hector Berlioz.
Karl Geiringer Der Freischutz , an opera in three acts with a libretto by Friedrich Kind.
Der Freischütz came to be regarded as the first German "nationalist" opera, Euryanthe developed the Leitmotif technique to an unprecedented degree, while Oberon may have influenced Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream and, at the same time, revealed Weber's lifelong interest in the music of non-Western cultures.
This interest was first manifested in Weber's incidental music for Schiller's translation of Gozzi's Turandot, for which he used a Chinese melody, making him the first Western composer to use an Asian tune that was not of the pseudo-Turkish kind popularized by Mozart and others.
The work took its subject from German legend, its language was German, and its music had the quality of German folk song.
Interests
Weber also wrote music journalism and was interested in folksong, and learned lithography to engrave his own works.
Connections
On 4 November 1817, he married Caroline Brandt, a singer who created the title role of Silvana.
