Weber, Carl Maria von

His father dreamed he would become a second Mozart. He saw to it that his son got a very broad education, and Weber grew up with art and music around him; and indeed, he was a music critic, a writer, a conductor and an influential composer in the field of Romantic opera. Among his great Romantic operas were "The Marksman" ("Der Freischütz"), a German opera with many national elements, "Euryanthe", and "Oberon" - and it was in the course of rehersals for this piece that he died, at the age of 40.

He was the one who developed the "Leitmotif" that Wagner will firmly adopted in his operas, and he was the one who placed the conductor in the center of the stage; traditionally, the conductor played the piano together with the orchestra. His waltz, "An Invitation to Dance" ("Aufforderung zum Tanze"), written for piano, was orchestrated years later by Berlioz, who incorporated it in a ballet he wrote.

Weber on the WWW

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