AN ACCOUNT
OF
WEBER’S “DER FREISCHÜTZ.”
If we examine into the history of the creation of most of the Works of High Art, which have from time to time appeared on the horizon, and reached the grand meridian of worldly fame, we shall most generally find that the elements of which they were composed have been seething in embryo in their several authors’ brains long before brought to birth; and frequently some happy combinations of circumstances arise to further and usher their progress into life. The Poem of the “Freischütz,” or rather the legendary lore with which it is imbued, was from his earliest childhood a day-dream with Friedrich Kind, the friend of Weber and the fellow-author of this marvellous master-piece of Musical Genius.
Kind was born at Dresden on the 4th of March, 1767. His father was a barrister and justiciary, a contemporary with Gellert, Gottsched, Ernesti, Reiske, and even Gleim, besides, a man himself of no mean learning and talents[1]; so that the poetical and literary tastes of the young Friedrich received early their fitting cultivation. One day, after turning over loads of such books as those of Musæus, Benedict Raubert, &c. novels and tales, new and old, of high or low degree, Kind and Weber began by fingering page after page, in the hope of discovering a fitting subject for their joint labors. “Ah!” Kind at last exclaimed as he drew forth the undermost volume from the heap, “here is something that will suit us both, yourself especially, who are so learned in Folk-lore, but—but—.” “What is it?” cried Weber. Kind held him out the “Gespensterbuch[2],” “Apel’s Freischütz!” he knew it; was struck with the idea; and exclaimed—“Glorious! glorious!” After some doubts, however, on both sides, as to the practicability of the plot, they parted from one another with the conviction that they must give it up. Kind, notwithstanding, was not quite so easily brought to a resignation upon the subject as Weber: at last, a plan for the due fitting of his materials flashed upon him; he was with Weber in a trice, and unfolded to him the various workings of the plot, which was joyfully hailed by the latter.
We will now lay before our readers the materia upon which Kind founded his drama, and then demonstrate how he manipulated the subject here presented, into a form adapted to the harmonic robing Weber had to invest it with. In the First Volume of the above-mentioned “Gespensterbuch” will be found the following Popular Tradition, which we have freely rendered from the original: it is entitled,—
Der Freischütz (The Free-shooter).
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
“Hark ye, mother,”—said the old Forester Bertram of Lindenhayn—“ye know I wish ye nought but love, yet, clear your brain of this one crotchet, and fortify the girl’s spirit to obey me. I refuse flatly; so let her weep away—and submit; there is no use in any more nonsense or delay.”
“But, father dear,”—chimed in the Forester’s wife imploringly,—“would not our Kate be as happy with the young clerk, as with the hunter Robert? You know not Wilhelm sufficiently, he is so brave a lad, and one so true of heart.”
“But no huntsman,”—answered the Forester,—“my Forestry hath been bequeathed for these two hundred years from father straight to son. Had ye brought me a boy ’stead of this girl, it might have been; to him I could have left my place, and Kate have chosen her own suitor at her will; but, as it stands. . . . . . . . .no! The whole source of my care and anxiety is, that the Duke should elect my son-in-law at the Trial-shot; let him be but a first-rate marksman, need I sacrifice then the girl? No, mother Anne, I do not stickle for Robert; if he please ye noway, pick me out some gallant young huntsman, to whom during life-time I can hand my office o’er, we will then pass our old days in peace among our children, with a little sport my mere occasional pastime.”
Mother Anne would have spoken yet one good word more for the young clerk, but the Forester, who well knew the cunning of a woman’s persuasive powers, would not submit his resolution to the chance of another attack; so, taking his gun from the wall, he went out into the wood.
Scarcely had he turned the corner of the house, when Kate popped smilingly in at the door her pretty little head covered with its golden locks. “Has all gone well, mother darling? is it so?”—she cried, and springing at one bound into the chamber, she flung her arms around the neck of the Forester’s wife.
“Ah, Kate, be not too gladsome,”—rejoined the mother,—“thy father is good,—kindly, heartfully good, but he will give thee to no man, unless he be a hunter; with that determination has he left me, and I know him well.”
Kate wept piteously, and would rather die than be torn from her Wilhelm. The mother scolded and consoled her by turns, and finally joined her tears to those of the daughter. She even spake of attempting to capture the Forester’s heart by storm, when a knock was heard at the door, and Wilhelm entered.
“Ah, Wilhelm,”—cried Kate to him, with streaming eyes,—“we must part! find thee another sweatheart, thou mayest not be my life, nor yet I thine; father will give me to Robert, because that he is a hunter, and mother cannot help us. But though I must leave thee, I will never be another’s, and remain thine,—true to thee, ’till death.”
Mother Anne told the young clerk (who knew not what to make of Kate’s address) to be calm, and narrated to him, how that Old Bertram had no personal objection against him, but that in order to ensure the succession of his Forestry to his heirs, he must have for a son-in-law—a hunter.
“Is that all?”—replied Wilhelm tranquilly, pressing the weeping girl to his breast.—“Come, have a good heart, sweet Kate. At hunting-craft I am not utterly unskilful, having served pupillage therein with my uncle the Head-forester Finsterbuch, and must only leave my godfather the Baillie and his writing-desk, for the hunter’s pouch. What boots to me the promised wardenship, if that I cannot place my Kate as lady-bailiff near me on the bench? Make but a choice equal to thy mother’s, let Wilhelm the Forester be as dear to thee as Wilhelm the Clerk, and willingly I change; how far pleasanter the wild free hunter-life, than a stiff existence in the town!”
“O thou glorious, golden Wilhelm!”—exclaimed Kate, and every
