as a son, and he stayed in their house the whole time he was in Berlin. His most valuable acquaintance was Lichtenstein, Professor of Zoology, who was the first to recognise his genius in Berlin. As one of the foremost members of the Singakademie he had no difficulty in introducing Weber to cultivated and musical families, where he soon became a favourite for his pleasant manners, his admirable pianoforte-playing and extemporising, his inspiriting way of leading concerted music, and above all his charming songs and his guitar. For these private circles he composed five charming part-songs. He used often to play to his new friends, with an almost inexhaustible variety of nuances, his Sonata in C, composed in Berlin. He himself taught (on Aug. 26) the soldiers at the barracks near the Oranienburg gate, to sing his 'Kriegs-Eid,' a chorus for men's voices with wind instruments in unison, which lie dedicated to the Brandenburg Brigade. While he was in Berlin his old father died at Mannheim (April 16, 1812), an event which brought back in full force his homelessness and loneliness, and made him touchingly grateful for any proof of friendship. Bärmann had left him on March 28 for Munich, and on Aug. 31 he himself also left Berlin, stayed some few days in Leipzig, where he found a publisher for some of his compositions, and had a talk with Rochlitz, and then, passing through Weimar, arrived on Sept. 6 at Gotha.
The Duke's treatment was politeness itself, but instead of having, as he hoped, a quiet time for composition, Weber found the constant attendance on the Duke's inspired moments exciting and exhausting. In the midst of this he received an invitation from the Princess Maria Paulowna, to come to Weimar, and teach her some of his works, including the Sonata in C, which he had dedicated to her. On this subject he writes to Lichtenstein (Nov. 1), 'The Princess often says that she does not believe she will ever play the sonata properly as long as she lives. If she were not a Princess, I should be at liberty to tell her that I fully agree with her.' He had to give her a lesson each morning for a week, and the rest of his time he spent with the company at the theatre, among whom P. A. Wolf specially attracted him, and with Wieland, who was a sympathetic listener to his playing. One of the effects which Weber carried to a pitch of excellence never heard before, was a long crescendo, beginning with an almost inaudible pianissimo, and passing through every gradation of loudness up to a thundering fortissimo. The effect of this was irresistible, and Wieland, having asked for it, found himself gradually drawn off his chair as by some demoniacal agency. In Gotha he had much stimulating intercourse with Spohr, and also with Albert Methfessel, then passing through. His diary contains some interesting remarks on Spohr's compositions. Thus the evening of Sept. 16 was passed in going with Spohr through the latter's 'Last Judgment' (produced at Erfurt, Aug. 15). Weber did not much like the work, and calls it laboured, tedious, full of unnecessary modulations, and modelled entirely after Mozart.' On Sept. 27, however, he writes, 'Spohr played his new Quartet in G minor very finely; it is well-composed; much flow and unity. Afterwards a fine Sonata with his wife.' At Spohr's he also met Hermstadt, the clarinet-player from Sondershausen, who played a Concerto of Spohr's in masterly style, but seems to have been inferior to Bärmann in purity of tone and expression. As a rule, the quick-witted, far-seeing Weber was juster towards Spohr's compositions than the more ponderous and short-sighted Spohr was to his. But personal dislikes never lasted with Spohr. He could distinguish between a man and his work, and was always a loyal friend to Weber.
The Duke's younger brother, Prince Friedrich, an admirer of Italian music, had brought a singing-master back with him from Italy, and often had Weber to go through Italian operas with him. He had a good tenor voice, and for him Weber composed an Italian scena ed aria, with chorus, from an opera 'Ines de Castro,' performed at a court-concert on Dec. 17. Other works written at Gotha were the celebrated PF. Variations on a theme from Méhul's 'Joseph,' the first two movements of the PF. Concerto in E♭, and a hymn, 'In seiner Ordnung schafft der Herr,' to Rochlitz's words. Spohr having recently started on a concert-tour, Weber left Gotha, on Dec. 19, for Leipzig, where he produced this hymn at a Gewandhaus Concert (Jan. 1, 1813), and played the E♭ Concerto, 'with a success,' he writes himself, 'such as was perhaps scarcely ever known in Leipzig before. It is pronounced to be the first of Concertos for effect and novelty. Truly these people, once so cold, have quite adopted me.' Thus the new year opened to him under happy auspices.
This year, 1813, was the greatest turning-point in Weber's short career. Hitherto his life had been that of a wandering minstrel or troubadour. Roving restlessly from place to place, winning all hearts by his sweet, insinuating, lively melodies, his eccentricities making him an imposing figure to the young of both sexes, and an annoyance to the old, exciting the attention of everybody, and then suddenly disappearing, his person uniting in the most seductive manner aristocratic bearing and tone with indolent dissipation, his moods alternating between uproarious spirits and deep depression—in all ways he resembled a figure from some romantic poem, wholly unlike anything seen before in the history of German art. In talking of Weber, people have in their minds, as a rule, only the last period of his life, beginning with 'Der Freischütz,' and ending with 'Oberon,' but from that point of view the work becomes too prominent, and the man of too little importance. As a man his versatile gifts made more effect in the first half of his artistic career than in the second. His artistic wanderings gave the keynote to
