them alone
Her glorious countenance unveiled is shown."

WEBER.

I.

The genius which inspired the three great works, "Der Freischutz,"
"Euryanthe," and "Oberon," has stamped itself as one of the most
original and characteristic in German music. Full of bold and surprising
strokes of imagination, these operas are marked by the true atmosphere
of national life and feeling, and Ave feel in them the fresh, rich color
of the popular traditions, and song-music which make the German _Lieder_
such an inexhaustible treasure-trove. As Weber was maturing into that
fullness of power which gave to the world his greater works, Germany had
been wrought into a passionate patriotism by the Napoleonic wars. The
call to arms resounded from one end of the Fatherland to the other.
Every hamlet thrilled with fervor, and all the resources of national
tradition were evoked to heighten the love of country into a puissance
which should save the land. Germany had been humiliated by a series of
crushing defeats, and national pride was stung to vindicate the
grand old memories. France, in answer to a similar demand for some
art-expression of its patriotism, had produced its Rouget de-Lisle;
Germany produced the poet Korner and the musician Weber.

It is not easy to appreciate the true quality and significance of
Weber's art-life without considering the peculiar state of Germany at
the time; for if ever creative imagination was forged and fashioned by
its environments into a logical expression of public needs and impulses,
it was in the case of the father of German romantic opera. This
inspiration permeated the whole soil of national thought, and its
embodiment in art and letters has hardly any parallel except in that
brilliant morning of English thought which we know as the Elizabethan
era. To understand Weber the composer, then, we must think of him not
only as the musician, but as the patriot and revivalist of ancient
tendencies in art, drawn directly from the warm heart of the people.

Karl Maria von Weber was born at Eutin, in Holstein, December 18, 1786.
His father had been a soldier, but, owing to extravagance and folly, had
left the career of arms, and, being an educated musician, had become by
turns attached to an orchestra, director of a theatre, Kapellmeister,
and wandering player--never remaining long in one position, for he was
essentially vagrant and desultory in character. Whatever Karl Maria had
to suffer from his