o commence with a scream; and if he
is not at his best, then the scream may degenerate into a whimper
before the moment for the climax has arrived. Like Spohr, with whom he
had much in common, despite the difference between his mercurial
temperament and the pedagogic gravity of the composer of "The Last
Judgment," he set great store upon his learning, and was fond of
trivial themes that admitted of obvious contrapuntal treatment. Even
when he avoided that failing, his music is often uncouth and
ponderous, while on its surface lies a superfluous, highly-coloured
froth. The basses move with leaden-footed reluctance; the melodies
consist largely of ineffective arpeggios on long-drawn chords; the
embroidery seems greatly in excess of modest needs. All this may be
conceded without affecting Weber's claim to a place amongst the
composers; for that claim 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. Drawing and
painting, I say; for whereas the other musicians sang the emotions
that they experienced, Weber's music gives you the impression that he
depicted the things he saw, that melody and harmony were to him as
lines and colours to the painter. He is first, and perhaps greatest,
of all the musicians who have attempted landscape; and that froth of
seemingly superfluous colour and excess of melodic embroidery, instead
of being in excess and superfluous, are the very essence of his music.
Being a factor of the Romantic movement, that mighty rebellion against
the tyranny of a world of footrules and ledgers, he lived and worked
in a world where two and two might make five or seven or any number
you pleased, and where footrules were unknown; he took small interest
in drama taken out of the lives of ordinary men and enacted amidst
everyday 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. Hence his operas are not so much musical dramas as
series of tableaux, gorgeous glowing pictures of unheard-of things; in
them we must expect only to find the elfish, the fantastic, the wild
and weird and grotesquely horrible; and to look for drama, captivating
loveliness, and emotional utterance, is to l