Weber, Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von
Weber, Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von (1786–1826),German composer and pianist. Appointed director of the Opera at Prague in 1813 and at Dresden in 1816, Weber was at the height of his career when he composed the highly popular Der Freischütz (1821). Its plot derives from the common folklore motif of the man who sells the devil his soul; Weber's huntsman protagonist bargains for magic bullets, so that he can win a contest of marksmanship, and with it the hand of the woman he loves. She succeeds in redeeming him with her pure‐hearted love, however, and the two lovers are happily united. The high point of the opera is the casting of the magic bullets at midnight in the ‘Wolf's Glen’, a scene of supernatural horror, expressed musically through imaginative orchestration and unusual harmonies. Weber's serious use of supernatural elements, combined with the wild natural setting, the struggle between forces of good and evil, the...
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