Ii) Italian settings.

With the exception of the concert aria j181 (1815) and an Italian cantata, L'accoglienza (j221), composed for a royal wedding in Dresden in 1817, Weber's Italian settings date from 1810 to 1812, when his persisting hope of travel to Italy may have led him to seek experience in setting the language. The three canzonettas op.29 (1811), conceived with guitar accompaniment and written in ternary form, affect a studied simplicity corresponding to an idealized vision of ‘italianità’ shared by a number of German composers of the early 19th century (Leopold, N1996). The three duets of op.31 (1811; j107, 123, 125) are longer, with an opening slow section followed by a quicker one. More significant are the five concert arias (j93, 121, 126, 142, 181), written for specific singers either for use in Weber's public concerts or to satisfy commissions. These arias merit study for the evidence they provide for Weber's understanding of Italian operatic styles, and also because they furnish – along with the two new arias for the Berlin Silvana production of 1812 and the two substitute arias to German texts (j178 and 239) – important insight into Weber's development as a dramatic composer between the completion of Abu Hassan (1811) and the composition of Der Freischütz (1817–21) (Huck, N1999).

Iii) Vocal ensembles.

Weber's vocal music also includes a large number of pieces for ensembles of various sizes, both with and without piano accompaniment. Duets, trios and songs with choral refrains occasionally appear in the published song and folksong collections. From his study with Michael Haydn Weber developed a fondness for canons, a number of which he wrote to entertain his musical friends in Mannheim and Berlin. His friendships in Berlin, largely with members of the Sing-Akademie and Liedertafel, also led to a number of pieces for mixed ensemble written as birthday greetings (j131, 133, 135, 165) and to an extended all-male work for Zelter's Liedertafel (j132). Without doubt, Weber's most famous choral pieces were the six songs for a cappella male chorus in the second volume of Leyer und Schwerdt (op.42), concise, homophonic settings of anti-Napoleonic verse by the poet-martyr Theodor Körner. Stemming from his experiences in Berlin in summer 1814, these pieces were the first by Weber to gain widespread acclaim, as they summed up the patriotic fervour of a people newly selfconscious of their nationhood; especially popular was the fiery Lützow's wilde Jagd, which usually had to be encored whenever Weber presented it and which enjoyed international circulation. A later publication of ‘Männerchor’ songs, op.68, made no comparable impact.

Iv) Cantatas.

Of the many cantata and cantata-like pieces that Weber composed, four have special significance for his career. A major work from his time in Stuttgart is Der erste Ton (1808, revised 1810), based on a poem by Rochlitz about God's creation of sound after he had created the world. For the most part Weber conceived the piece as a spoken declamation accompanied by orchestral music that characterizes the different images in the poem (chaos, creation, order, the sounds of nature etc.); singing voices enter only at the end in a closing choral fugue that Weber revised under Vogler's supervision in 1810. Rochlitz also provided the text for another large-scale work with religious overtones, the hymn In seiner Ordnung schafft der Herr (1812), which also concludes with a fugue. Weber conceived the cantata Kampf und Sieg (1815) in the wake of Waterloo as an expression of the various emotions attending the Hundred Days and as an appeal for continued cooperation among the allied princes, to whom he sent manuscript copies of the full score in the hope that he would receive appropriate recognition or reward. The cantata quotes various melodies to symbolize the participants in the great struggle: an Austrian grenadiers' march, the French song Ah, ça ira, Prussian field trumpet calls, his own Lützow's wilde Jagd, and God Save the King. To prepare for its concluding fugue Weber studied Marpurg, only to reach the conclusion that traditional fugal theory was of little help for the composition of fugue that also spoke to feeling (letter to Gottfried Weber of 16 September 1815). Finally, one of the most important of Weber's occasional pieces for the court in Dresden is the Jubel-Cantate (1818), based on a text by Friedrich Kind to celebrate the 50-year reign of King Friedrich August I. Here Weber eschewed learned counterpoint to evoke in broad and simple strokes the Saxon people's feelings of devotion to their king and thanks to God for having preserved him through illness and war.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 606