Composing Anxious Voices: Aesthetic Distance, Empathy, and Musical Rhetoric in Two Ossian-Inspired Works by Louis Spohr and Carl Maria von Weber

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Acknowledgments

I are grateful to the following colleagues: Gerald Bär for reminding me of the importance of Weber’s autobiographical novel; Howard Gaskill for corrections to my translation of the poems set by Spohr and Weber; and Ralph P. Locke for suggesting the current essay title. Finally, I must thank Nathalie Vanballenberghe for her accurate transcription of my pencilled musical examples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01411896.2024.2316906

Notes

¹ Max Maria Weber, The Life of an Artist, trans. J. P. Simpson, vols. 2 (London: Chapman and Hall, 1865), II: 225; see also Weber’s Writings on Music, trans. Martin Cooper, ed. John Warrack (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); John Warrack’s biography Carl Maria von Weber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) cites most of the published studies up to the date of publication. But the international bibliography of Weber studies is now extensive and includes not only the basic chronological-thematic Catalog of F. W. Jähns, Carl Maria von Weber in seinem Werken: Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis seiner sämtlichen Kompositionen (Berlin-Lichterfelde: Robert Lienau, 1967) but also the authoritative online Weber-Gesamtausgabe sponsored by the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, the Musicology Department at the University of Paderborn, and the Internationale Weber Gesellschaft based at the State Library, Berlin (which produces the journal series Weberiana). The publisher Schott issues another scholarly journal (Weber-Studien). The references in the present essay (such as J. 189) are to the listed number in the Catalog of Jähns.

² See Louis Spohr: A Critical Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Spohr’s own indispensable memoirs, Lebenserinnerungen, ed. Folker Göthel (Tutzing: Schneider, 1968) were begun in 1847 and continued intermittently until his death. The Journal of the Spohr Society was published in the U.K. between 1970 and 2016, and the U.S. Spohr Society sponsors the Spohr Jahrbuch that is issued by the Ludwig Spohr Musikcentrum, Braunschweig. See also the important Thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis der Werke von Louis Spohr, ed. Folker Göthel (Tutzing: Schneider, 1981).

³ The primary texts published by Macpherson are Fragments of Ancient Poetry (Edinburgh: Hamilton & Balfour, 1760), Fingal (London: Becket & De Hondt, 1762), Temora (London: Becket & De Hondt, 1763), The Works of Ossian (London: Becket & De Hondt, 1765), and The Poems of Ossian (London: Strahan & Becket, 1773). For the effect of the poems in Germany see Wolf Gerhard Schmidt, “Homer des Nordens” und “Mutter der Romantik”: James Macphersons Ossian und seine Rezeption in der deutschsprachigen Literatur, 4 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003).

⁴ See Matthew S. Buckley, “Refugee Theatre: Melodrama and Modernity’s Loss,” Theater Journal 61, no. 2 (2009): 175–90. The author argues for a reappraisal of the modern concept of melodrama, pointing to its roots in the late eighteenth century when the genre created “deep seated patterns of affective response.” The theme of exile (physical dislocation) is a major theme in the classical cases of Ariadne and her cousin Medea.

⁵ Weber composed some 24 pieces for the theater; these are analyzed by Oliver Huck, Von der Silvana zum Freischütz: die Konzertarien, die Einlagen zu Opern und die Schauspielmusik Carl Maria von Webers [Weber-Studien, 5] (Mainz: Schott, 1999), 7–126. Spohr also wrote incidental music as, for example, in a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the Berlin Schauspielhaus in 1825. See Keith Warsop, “Spohr’s Overtures,” Journal of the Spohr Society 22 (1995): 12–16.

⁶ Relevant comparative studies include Clive Brown, “The Chamber Music of Spohr and Weber,” in Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, ed. Stephen E. Hefling (New York: Routledge, 2003), 140–69; and Benedict Taylor, “The Consecration of Sound: Sublime Musical Creation in Haydn, Weber and Spohr,” in Music and the Sonorous Sublime in European Culture, 1680–1880, ed. Sarah Hibberd and Miranda Stanyon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 200–21.

⁷ See Eva Piirimäe, Liina Lukas, and Johannes Schmidt eds., Herder on Empathy and Sympathy: Einfühlung und Sympathie im Denken Herders (Leiden: Brill, 2020).

⁸ See Howard Gaskill ed., Special Ossian Issue of Translation and Literature 22, no. 3 (2013) for discussion of such concepts as the “foreignizing” of texts (in translation).

⁹ See Sarah Clemmens Waltz, “Preface,” in German Settings of Ossianic Texts, 1770–1820 (Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2016); and James Porter, Beyond Fingal’s Cave: Ossian in the Musical Imagination (New York: University of Rochester Press, 2019; corrected paperback version, 2022). Mendelssohn’s Overture “The Hebrides” (or “Fingal’s Cave,” 1832) is the best-known work to have reflected Ossian’s influence on composers of art music.

¹⁰ In his autobiography, Selbstbiographie (Cassel and Göttingen: Wigand, 1860), I:15, Spohr reveals the pain he felt at leaving his parents and friends at the age of 18—a significant example of physical dislocation. The relevant passage in Spohr’s early life (“Der Abschied”) cites the date of April 24, 1802.

¹¹ Ossian’s Gedichte/Rhythmisch überstezt, 3 vols. (Berlin: Heinrich Fröhlich, 1800). The edition was reprinted in Prague (1801; untraced) and Berlin (1804), and a second “improved” edition appeared in Berlin (Duncker und Humblot, 1817–1818). Another edition was issued in Vienna by Anton Doll in 1804.

¹² See Howard Gaskill, ed., The Reception of Ossian in Europe (London: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004).

¹³ Austin Glatthorn, “The Legacy of ‘Ariadne’ and the Melodramatic Sublime,” Music & Letters 100, no. 2 (2019): 233–70.

¹⁴ Mozart, letter to his father from Mannheim, November 12, 1778. Translated in Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and His Family (London: Macmillan & Co, 1938), II: 937.

¹⁵ Katherine Hambridge, “Melodramatic Histrionics: Bernhard Anselm Weber, ‘Ich bin geliebt’ (Sulmalle), Sulmalle,” Cambridge Opera Journal 28, no. 2 (2016): 141–44.

¹⁶ Spohr had lately extricated himself from involvement with Rosa Alberghi, a singer he met in Leipzig, citing differences in education and religious affiliation (she was Catholic, he Lutheran).

¹⁷ In his Selbstbiographie (97) Spohr wrote that Mme. Scheidler “sang [the scena] with great applause (‘mit großem Beifall’) at one of the Court-Concerts.” Spohr and Dorette were subsequently married in the Gotha court chapel on February 2, 1806.

¹⁸ Szene für Sopran und Orchester, WoO 75 (1805). The author of the text is uncertain (see discussion below). The composition has been published in full score, edited by Wolfram Boder (Kassel: Merseburger, 2008). See also Keith Warsop, “Spohr’s ‘Oscar’: The Ossian Connection,” Journal of the Spohr Society 25 (1998): 21–22.

¹⁹ Weber, appointed Kapellmeister in Breslau from 1804 to 1806, was well aware of Rhode’s translation of Ossian. He was also familiar with the translation of Ludwig Schubart, Ossian’s Gedichte nach MacPherson, 2 vols. (Vienna: Degenschen Buchhandlung, 1808), referring to it in an article on the state of the arts in Stuttgart: Zeitung für die elegante Welt 10, no. 53 (March 15, 1810).

²⁰ Reinbeck’s play was based on Friedrich Otto von Diericke’s five-act tragedy Eduard Montrose (1776). Reinbeck was Associate Editor of the Morgenblatt from 1808 to 1819. From 1811 he was Professor of German, Modern Literature, and Aesthetics at the Obergymnasium. In 1824 he was a co-founder of the Stuttgart Liederkranz (song circle) and Leseverein (reading club) as well as, in 1816, the Schiller Society.

²¹ On Weber’s relationship to Beethoven see Warrack, Weber, 98–100.

²² Warrack, Weber, 168, following Jähns, Verzeichnis, 202, has “18 November 1815.” The online Weber-Gesamtausgabe corrects this date to November 19, 1815.

²³ The manuscript fair copy of the ballade (probably in Weber’s hand) in the Morgan Library, New York, has “Harfe” inscribed to the left of the staff before the instrumental part (MS Cary, pp. 6–11). On Weber’s autograph see Jana Vojtěšková, “Několik pramenů z doby působeni Carla Marii von Webera ve Stavovském divadle” (“Several Sources Pertaining to Carl Maria von Weber’s Work for the Estates Theater in Prague”), Musicalia 5, nos. 1–2 (2013): 57–64 (English version, 65–77). The Czech Museum of Music in Prague holds the MS of the cantata Kampf und Sieg (1815) in Weber’s hand (63), along with his annotations, documents relating to his wedding with Caroline (Brandt) and his Notizen-Buch (diary), into which he entered stage works produced in Prague during his time as Opera Director. The article includes a table of works based on this latter source.

²⁴ “The Songs of Selma” form part of Macpherson’s anonymously published Fragments of Ancient Poetry. Famously, Goethe translated them for inclusion toward the end of his novel, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774).

²⁵ In the AmZ 12 (1810), 997–99, Weber had contributed a positive review of a setting of Colma’s lament, “Colma: scène ossianique” (Offenbach: André, 1810) by his friend Louis (Ludwig) Berger (1774 or 1782–1828), a tenor and song composer from Wadersloh, district of Warendorf (North Rhine-Westphalia) whom he had first met in Stuttgart during his years there (1807–1810). See James Porter, “Maiden, Poet, Composer, Princess: Louis Berger’s ‘Colma: scène ossianique’ (1810),” in The Musical Times (forthcoming June 2024).

²⁶ The Kassel organist Carl Rundnagel (1835–1911) arranged the Larghetto section (from m. 56) for violin with piano accompaniment as “Romanze (B Dur),” no. 3 of Vier Stücke für Violine componiert von Louis Spohr (WoO 26), composed in Gotha in 1805. The Berlin firm of Ries & Erler published these pieces between 1884 and 1896. See Martin Wulfhorst, “Identifying Five Spohr Items (WoO 26, 32, 39, 40, 139),” Journal of the Spohr Society 16 (1980): 2–5.

²⁷ For the complete text of the poem see Appendix A.

²⁸ The device of a tableau vivant during the overture was already known in French opera. See Edward J. Dent, The Rise of Romantic Opera, ed. Winton Dean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 89.

²⁹ “Mad. Scheidler aus Gotha sang die bekannte Scene von Mozart, mit obligatem Pianoforte, und eine deutsche Scene vom Hrn. Konzertmeister Spohr aus Gotha, mit Einsicht, guter Methode and einer Stimme, die in den mittlern und tiefern Tönen recht gut klingt, aber freylich nicht mehr frisch und jugendlich ist … Die oben angeführte deutsche Scene von Hrn. Spohr’s Komposition war zu lang, und etwas monoton gehalten—kleiner Unebenheiten in der Behandlung des Textes zu geschweigen.” AmZ, no. 15 (January 8, 1806): 230–31, cited by Brown, Louis Spohr, 61. For his part Weber, sensitive to criticism, initiated a controversy with AmZ and its reviews in Dresden in 1818. See Warrack, Writings on Music, 272–76.

³⁰ Brown, Spohr, 82, refers to this passage as being “associated with Faust’s thoughts about Röschen” (his first love). The main influences on Spohr’s opera were Maximilian von Klinger (1752–1831), author of Sturm und Drang (1776), and Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811). Weber had employed features of chromaticism in Silvana but refined these for Der Freischütz. See Katherine Lynn Buckler, “Carl Maria von Weber and the Forest Girl: Chromaticism in the Arias of Silvana (1808–1810), Act I (M.M. thesis, Texas State University, 2021).

³¹ Brown, Spohr, 61.

³² See Julian Rushton, “Mozart’s Art of Rhetoric: Understanding an Opera Seria Aria (‘Deh se piacer mi vuoi’ from La Clemenza di Tito’),” Contemporary Music Review 17, no. 3 (1998): 15–27.

³³ Brown, Spohr, 78, 118, and 340–44. The author cites the verdict of the historian Joseph Schluter, in A General History of Music, trans. Mrs Robert Tubbs (London: R. Bentley, 1865), namely that “he [Spohr] is, like all artists who are prone to the ‘sentimental,’ apt to fall into monotony and mannerism” (342).

³⁴ The title is often curtailed in commercial prints of the score to “scena cantante.” Spohr always referred to the piece as his “Gesangsszene.” See Brown, Spohr, 103.

³⁵ The absence of oboes, presumably, has to do with their timbre’s detracting from the prominence of the solo violin.

³⁶ Weber published a positive introduction to the opera. See Warrack, Writings on Music, 191–93 and Jonathan A. Sturm, “Dramatic Style Achieved: The Three Spohr Concertos,” Journal of the Spohr Society 27 (2000): 2–14.

³⁷ Warrack, Weber, 132, claims that the Romantic fashion was “more generally Wordsworthian,” oblivious of the fact that the poems of Ossian had a far greater impact on the continent—and especially in Germanic lands—than those of Wordsworth in terms of “the sounding cataract, the mountain, the deep and gloomy wood.” Despite his denials, Wordsworth owed a great deal to the Ossian poems for mood and imagery. See John Robert Moore, “Wordsworth’s Unacknowledged Debt to Macpherson’s Ossian,” Publications of the Modern Language Association, 40 no. 2 (1925): 362–78; also Fiona J. Stafford, “‘Dangerous Success’: Ossian, Wordsworth, and English,” in Ossian Revisited, Howard Gaskill ed. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), 49–72.

³⁸ It is no secret that Macpherson, buoyed by the success of the Fragments, gradually began to adapt and invent passages for Fingal (1762)—and even more for Temora (1763)—with the idea of “restoring” the supposed epic originals of the two poems as counterparts of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. He increasingly saw himself as a perpetuator of the Gaelic-language bardic tradition (but writing in English now, of course, for a modern urban-educated audience).

³⁹ Writers such as Karoline von Gunderrode (1780–1806) explored themes such as that of the lost lover in her Gedichte und Phantasien (1804) and Poetische Fragmente (1805). Another contemporary author, Emilie von Berlepsch (1755–1830), born in Gotha, traveled to Scotland in the company of Reverend James Macdonald (1771 or 1772–1810) from the Hebridean island of North Uist and a trusted friend of Herder in Weimar. Her two-volume Caledonia (1801–1802), pays special attention to the oral traditions of Ossian in the Highlands.

⁴⁰ A recent conference, “Emil/Emilie: Herzog August von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg: Fürst, Literat und Kunstkenner mit fluider Geschlechteridentität” (November 23–25, 2022), held at the Forschungszentrum Gotha, has examined the life of the Duke. I acknowledge a helpful communication of October 30, 2022 from Prof. Martin Mulsow, organiser of the conference.

⁴¹ Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion (1797–1799), a fictional epistolatory autobiography, may have influenced the Duke’s novel. It was set in Hölderlin’s latter-day Greece, a country he saw as degenerate compared with Ancient Greece. The Duke’s work, in contrast, is set in the latter era, possibly following the impact of the art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768), an important figure in the Enlightenment from his pioneering interpretation of classical Greek art.

⁴² Spohr shared the Duke’s liberal politics, later supporting the 1848 revolution and scornful of the forces that suppressed it. His princely employer in Kassel, however, resented his Freemason membership and banned the composer’s orchestra from playing a graveside tribute on the anniversary of his death in 1861.

⁴³ The poem was “Um Rettung,” set in 1812 as a “Romanze (Wiedersehn)” (J. 129) while Weber was in Berlin. It appeared later in Beitrag zur Polyhymnia, ed. Fr. Kind and H. Marschner (Leipzig: Hermann, 1826).

⁴⁴ Warrack, Weber, 137–38.

⁴⁵ On these levels and distinctions see Hayden White, “Commentary,” in Music and Text: Critical Enquiries, ed. Steven Paul Scher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 283–319, here 304.

⁴⁶ Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart’s Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (Vienna: J. V. Degen, 1806) was published posthumously, but the theory and affect of key characteristics were well known to Spohr and his contemporaries. See Rita Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics in the 18^th and Early 19^th Centuries (New York: University of Rochester Press, 2002). An equally important figure for Spohr and Weber was the theorist Gottfried Weber (1779–1839), whose Versuch einer geordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst (1816–1821) was highly influential as was the journal Cäcilia, which he edited from 1824 to 1839. Weber had met Gottfried (no relation) during his period in Stuttgart (1807–1810) and was later welcomed by him when he arrived in Mannheim on February 27, 1810. Gottfried Weber oversaw the Mannheim concerts at the time.

⁴⁷ Remembering Caroline’s success in Silvana Weber engaged her for the Prague Theater after becoming Opera Director. The two subsequently became close even though Weber was embroiled in a relationship with another singer, Therese Brunetti who, married to a dancer, was the mother of five children. On this relationship see Warrack, Weber, 154–55.

⁴⁸ Weber wrote to the supportive critic Rochlitz on August 27, 1815, insisting that he did not want to involve himself in a poem that was “shrieking ‘Vivat Blücher, Vivat Wellington’”; cited by Warrack, Writings on Music, 159–63.

⁴⁹ Warrack, Weber, 164.

⁵⁰ Weber completed, after all, impressive instrumental works in Munich such as the Clarinet Quintet (J. 182, op. 34) and the Concertino for Horn and Orchestra (J. 188, op. 45).

⁵¹ Warrack, Weber, 57, gives an account of Weber’s serious illness in Breslau in 1806, caused by his inadvertently drinking engraving acid from a wine bottle. This accident, from which he took three months to recover, resulted in the loss of his singing voice.

⁵² It was in this year (1809) that Weber began his novel, Tonkünstlers Leben: eine Skizze, under the influence of Rochlitz (Leipzig), Duke Augustus Emil (Gotha), von Brentano (Prague), and Tieck (Prague, Dresden) and he worked on it intermittently until 1820. Reading E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Tales in 1816 revived his interest in completing the novel. See Steven Paul Scher, “Carl Maria von Weber’s Tonkünstlers Leben: The Composer as Novelist?” Comparative Literature Studies, 15, no. 1 (1978): 30–42.

⁵³ It also appeared in Vier Gesänge aus Reinbecks Schriften und der Oper Abu Hassan, with piano accompaniment (Leipzig: Hofmeister, 1815). See Jähns, Verzeichnis, 84–85. The Romanze was published around 1815 by A. Cranz in Hamburg.

⁵⁴ See Carl Maria von Weber: Gesamtausgabe, http://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/A040717. Gordon und Montrose is printed in Georg Reinbeck, Sämmtliche dramatische Werke nebst Beiträgen zur Theorie der deutschen Schauspieldichtung und zur Kenntniß des gegenwärtigen Standdpunktes der deutschen Bühne (Heidelberg: Engelmann; Coblenz: H.J. Hölscher, 1819), IV:1–186.

⁵⁵ For the complete text and translation see Appendix B. Reinbeck was probably aiming at a “sublime” effect by placing this episode in a dramatic landscape. By 1815, conceptions of Nature’s grandeur were well established in German literature and philosophy of art. Weber’s acquaintance with the works of the philosopher F.W.J. Schelling—and with Schelling himself in Munich in 1811—may well have alerted him to the idea that tragedy was the poetic expression of the conflict between fate and human freedom. See Devin Zane Shaw, Freedom and Nature in Schelling’s Philosophy of Art (New York: Continuum, 2010).

⁵⁶ We must presume that the direction is meant to guard against any inadequacies in the bard’s singing voice and to show that he was carrying with him a portable triangular harp (rather than a quadrangular lyre). An offstage instrumentalist would actually provide the accompaniment.

⁵⁷ On the terminology of the concepts see Ulrich Gaier, Ballade, Romanze: Poetik und Geschichte (Würzburg: Königshausen u. Neumann, 2019). Although Johann Georg Sulzer, in his Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1787), 101–2 had attempted to define ballad and romance as separate genres, in oral tradition the narrative ballad and lyrical romance have often fused.

⁵⁸ In the manuscript the tempo marking is Allegro moderato. Rapidly descending thirds for the piano right hand are evident in the Rondo movement of Weber’s Grand Duo Concertant for clarinet (or violin) and piano, op. 48 (1815), measures 87–89, 134–35, and 198–99. The first movement Allegro, added in 1816, has similar plunging thirds in the piano, measures 131 and 159. See also the “Schöne Minka” Variations (1815) for cascading thirds in the right hand. The well-known Toccata from Muzio Clementi’s Sonata, op. 11 (1784) is possibly one of Weber’s models for this figuration.

⁵⁹ The D-minor chord is partly an “antique” effect rather than a conventional D-major dominant chord in the key of G minor. But it also involves chromatic alteration with descent of F sharp to F natural and E flat to D.

⁶⁰ According to Jähns, Verzeichnis, 202, Weber composed the final stanza separately from the others. The text seems to echo Psalm 11 v. 2 (King James Bible): “For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.”

⁶¹ Weber was by no means the only composer to use strophic form for the turmoil of Colma’s lament. Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1804) and Schubert (1815) both employed strophic settings for the song. In Paris Camille Pleyel (1815) published his strophic settings of “Colma (chant ossianique)” and “Les Adieux d’Oscar à Malvina” for voice and piano from the best-selling Poésies galliques (1800–1801) of Pierre Baour-Lormian (1770–1854).

⁶² Weber, writing from Munich in a letter of August 13, 1815 to Robert Schumann’s future father-in-law Friedrich Wieck in Leipzig to thank him for the cycle of eight songs (with a dedication) that he had sent to Prague the previous May 18, criticized Wieck’s handling of the strophe and stressed the need to vary the stanzas in order to effect a dramatic contrast between the expected repetition and the variation. See Warrack, Weber, 174–75.

⁶³ Der Sammler 8, no. 4 (January 9, 1816).

⁶⁴ Chronicle of the Royal Theater in Dresden (March 20, 1817); Dresdner Abendzeitung no. 81 (April 4, 1817).

⁶⁵ In a letter of November 26, 1815 to Rochlitz, Weber had commented on Reinbeck’s play as “fine versification and characterization but without real individuality. People will have found some borrowing from Schiller’s pieces—it is entitled Battle of Feelings and plays out in the time of the Stuarts in Scotland.” See Carl Maria von Weber: Gesamtausgabe http://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/A040833.

⁶⁶ The complete review is at Carl Maria von Weber: Gesamtausgabe http://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/A030104 (January 7, 2023).

⁶⁷ Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände 11 (May 4, 1817).

⁶⁸ Journal des Luxus und der Moden 33, no. 7 (July 1818): 434–36.

⁶⁹ See discussion in Huck, Von der Silvana zum Freischütz, 71–74. The music of the ballade is also printed in Oliver Huck, ed., Instrumental Musik II, vol. 10a (Mainz: Schott, 2003).

⁷⁰ Ehlers (1774–1845) was self-taught as a tenor, not a baritone, but performed for various stages, composing and singing to his own guitar accompaniment. In a letter of October 7, 1815 to Count Brühl, Intendant of the General Theater in Berlin, Weber criticized Ehler’s voice for poor intonation and for at times being laughably out of tune. Nevertheless, he remarked of the premiere that Ehlers “sang sie [the ballade] recht brav” but needed some additional coaching from the composer afterward.

⁷¹ A single-action pedal harp may have been used to affect the modulation from F sharp to F natural in the key of G minor. Lacking specific records, we cannot be sure what type of instrument was used or available. See Daniela Kotašová, “Harps Made by Franz Brunner in the Czech Museum of Music,” Musicalia 1, no. 2 (2016): 80–94, and Daniela Kotašová, “Érard Harps in the Collection of the Czech Museum of Music,” Musicalia 5 (2018): 85–99. I am grateful to Dr. Kotašová for confirming my hypothesis of a single-action instrument (correspondence of March 9 and 14, 2023).

⁷² See the symposium, Carl Maria von Weber und die Schauspielmusik seiner Zeit, ed. Dagmar Beck and Frank Zeigler [Weber-Studien, 7] (Mainz: Schott, 2003).

⁷³ On this topic see Thomas Grey, “‘ … wie ein rother Faden’: On the Origin of the ‘leitmotif’ in Critical Construct and Musical Practice,” in Music Theory of the 19^th Century, ed. Ian Bent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 187–210.

⁷⁴ The classic English-language study of the relationship between music and poetry is Calvin S. Brown, Music and Literature: A Comparison of the Arts (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1948; 2d ed. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1987).

⁷⁵ See Joseph E. Morgan, “Nature, Weber and a Revision of the French Sublime,” http://www.sineris.es/banda.html.

⁷⁶ See Stephen C. Meyer, Carl Maria von Weber and the Search for a German Opera (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003); and Porter, Beyond Fingal’s Cave, chapter 5 (Méhul’s Uthal), 57–71.

⁷⁷ Weber, article published first in the Dresden Abendzeitung, no. 25 (January 29, 1817), translation from Warrack ed., Writings on Music, 209.