the pictures they evoke and their orchestral dress, we must ac-
knowledge in Weber the touch of real poetic genius. To quote
Runciman[185]—
“If you look, and look rightly, for the right thing in Weber’s
music, disappointment is impossible, though I admit that the
man who professes to find there the great qualities he finds in
Mozart, Beethoven, or any of the giants, must be in a very
sad case. Grandeur, pure beauty, and high expressiveness are
alike wanting. Weber’s claim to a place amongst the composers
is supported in a lesser degree by the gifts which he shared,
even if his share was small, with the greater masters of music,
than by his miraculous power of vividly drawing and painting
in music the things that kindled his imagination. Being a fac-
tor of the Romantic movement, that mighty rebellion against
the tyranny of a world of footrules and ledgers, he lived in a
world where two and two might make five or seven or any num-
ber you pleased, and where footrules were unknown; he took
small interest in drama taken out of the lives of ordinary men
and enacted amidst every-day surroundings; his imagination lit
up only when he thought of haunted glens and ghouls and evil
spirits, the fantastic world and life that goes on underneath the
ocean, or of men or women held by ghastly spells.”
[Footnote 184: A striking illustration of this progression (surely
Weber’s most characteristic mannerism) is naïvely supplied by
Weingartner; when, in his own orchestral arrangement of We-
ber’sInvitation to the Dance, for the final climax he assembles
all the leading themes in combination—an effect made possible
only by their common harmonic basis.]
[Footnote 185: This whole article is well worth reading and may
be found in that breezy though somewhat erratic volume called
Old Scores and New Readings.]
Weber’s present-day fame rests upon the Overtures to his three
operas ofDer Freischütz,EuryantheandOberon, which are of-
ten played in detached concert form and hold their own for their
romantic glow and for the brilliancy of orchestral effect. By em-
ploying for his thematic material the leading melodies of the
operas themselves Weber has created what may be called epit-
omized dramas which, if we have any knowledge of what the
titles imply, present us with realistic pictures. For the use of
special tone-color to enhance the dramatic situation Weber is