# Who Influenced Weber?



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I think this is Weber's quotation of his teacher Haydn-




"Das Wild in Fluren und Triften"




Missa Sti. Ruperti, Gloria

Despite the Classical restraint, this (MH399/ii) momentarily reminds me of the Largo section of the Euryanthe overture-





"folksy" singspiele (although the later works, which may contain more traces of connection, have not been recorded)-





The Euryanthe overture also often feels like the Credo movement of a Classical mass (which tends to contain a separate, middle, slow/moody section of chromaticism) rather than a typical symphonic movement in terms of form.





Are there any other figures you think are his influences?


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Weber had plenty of teachers who influenced him in one way or another. By the time he was only four years of age Weber was an expert pianist, receiving early instruction from his father. When he was ten he began the formal study of music with the oboist, organist, and composer Johann Peter Heuschkel. Weber regarded Heuschkel as his most important pianistic influence. Heuschkel composed piano sonatas and variations, and an arrangement for piano duet of the overture to _Der Freischütz_. Weber also studied with tenor Giovanni Valesi (born Johann Evangelist Wallishauser, Walleshauser or Wellesberger), and the organist, Johann Nepomuk Kalcher. In late 1803 and early 1804 Weber lived in Vienna, the first extended period he'd had away from his father. In Vienna he studied with the noted composer and organist Georg Joseph Vogler, who was to be a long-lasting influence on the young Weber. Although Vogler was in many respects a product of eighteenth-century aesthetic and theoretical dispositions, he had a progressive, even experimental streak that expressed itself in his improvisations. He anticipated the figure of the modern virtuoso by touring and playing organ concerts that featured dramatic improvisations depicting biblical narratives. Most important, he made keyboard improvisation an integral part of his pedagogical method, requiring students to improvise simultaneously with him and with each other. On weekdays, students wrote compositions based on melodies provided by Vogler, and in the afternoon they brought their pieces for critique and performance. Yet on Sundays, they improvised; Vogler frequently improvised a motif on one organ in a church while a student developed the motif on a second organ. While Vogler instructed his students in thoroughbass methods, his improvisational teaching featured freer types of contrapuntal and figural elaboration that influenced their performances and compositions. Vogler’s approach to improvisation encouraged harmonic experimentation that influenced Weber’s expanded use of tonality.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

^true, I'm aware that Weber had various teachers (in singing and instrument-playing as well); I'm also aware Weber also studied with Vogler, but I think Haydn is significant in that he was Weber's first professional teacher in things like harmony and counterpoint (and so Weber dedicated to him one of his earliest compositions, set of fughettas) and Weber studied with him again in his adolescence when he and his family returned to Salzburg. Actually, there's not a whole lot of music by Vogler recorded aside from his requiem, so it's hard to speculate how much influence on Weber was there based on that.


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> Actually, there's not a whole lot of music by Vogler recorded aside from his requiem, so it's hard to speculate how much influence on Weber was there based on that.


On YouTube there are performances of a number of Vogler’s symphonies, his C major piano concerto, opera overtures and arias, works for organ, ballet suites, preludes and sonatas for fortepiano, a piano trio in G major, etc. Certainly enough for further speculation or even to whet one’s appetite for trying to find some specific influences, should one be so inclined.


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

This was the famous teacher Abbé Vogler, wasn't he? Much maligned as mediocrity in most of the stuff I read which is probably very unfair but I wonder how this impression came about.


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Kreisler jr said:


> This was the famous teacher Abbé Vogler, wasn't he? Much maligned as mediocrity in most of the stuff I read which is probably very unfair but I wonder how this impression came about.


For one thing, Vogler's music wasn't to Mozart's taste. “A dreary musical jester… a rather incompetent fellow” was how the 21-year-old Mozart described him, adding on another occasion that his sonatas were “tedious”. Vogler was no genius, but he was far from incompetent and could be a bold and colorful orchestrator with a flair for the dramatic and had something to say, particularly in the _Sturm und Drang _style (listen to his D minor Symphony from 1782 and the _Athalie _overture, as well as the _Hamlet_ overture of 1779).


----------



## feierlich (3 mo ago)

Beethoven among all... if you listen to _Der Freischütz_ and _Fidelio_ back-to-back you'll notice many similarities and references...


----------

