Vogler, impressed by his pupil's obvious talent, recommended him to the post of Director at the Opera in
Breslau (1806), and from 1807 to 1810, Weber held a post at the court of the
Duke of Württemberg, in
Stuttgart.
His personal life during this time remained irregular: he left his post in
Breslau in a fit of frustration, he was on one occasion arrested for debt and fraud and expelled from
Württemberg, and was involved in various scandals. However he remained successful as a composer, and also wrote a quantity of religious music, mainly for the
Catholic mass. This however earned him the hostility of reformers working for the re-establishment of traditional chant in liturgy.
In
1810, Weber visited several cities throughout Germany; from
1813 to
1816 he was director of the Opera in
Prague; from 1816 to
1817 he worked in
Berlin, and from 1817 onwards he was director of the prestigious
Opera in
Dresden, working hard to establish a German Opera, in reaction to the
Italian Opera which had dominated the European music scene since the 18th century.
The successful premiere of the opera
Der Freischütz (
18 June, 1821, Berlin) led to performances all over Europe; it remains the only one of his operas still in the regular repertoire.
Weber's colourful harmonies and orchestration, the use of popular themes from central European folk music, and the gloomy (
gothic)
libretto, complete with an appearance of the Devil himself in a nocturnal forest, have all helped to ensure its popularity.
In
1823 Weber composed the opera
Euryanthe to a mediocre libretto, but containing much rich music. In
1824 Weber received an invitation from
Covent Garden, London, to compose and produce
Oberon, based on
Christoph Martin Wieland's poem of the same name. Weber accepted the invitation, and in 1826 he travelled to England, to finish the work and be present at the performance on the
12 April.
Other famous works by Weber include:
Invitation to the Dance (later orchestrated by Berlioz);
Polacca Brillante; two
symphonies, a concertino and two
concertos for clarinet, a
quintet for clarinet and strings, and a
concertino for horn (during which the performer is asked to simultaneously produce two notes by humming while playing - a technique known in brass playing as
multiphonics).
Weber was already suffering from
tuberculosis when he visited
London; he died there during the night of
4 to
5 June, 1826. He was buried in London, but 18 years later, his remains were transferred on an initiative of Richard Wagner and re-buried in
Dresden.
His unfinished opera
Die Drei Pintos ('The Three Pintos') was originally given by Weber's widow to Meyerbeer for completion; it was eventually completed by
Gustav Mahler who conducted the first performance in this form in Leipzig on
20 January, 1888.
