Act II opens with a delightful duet for _Agathe_ and _Aennchen_ and a

charmingly coquettish little air for the latter (Comes a comely youth a-wooing). Then comes _Agathe's_ principal scene. She opens the window and, as the moonlight floods the room, intones the prayer so simple, so exquisite, so expressive: "Leise, leise, fromme Weise" (Softly sighing, day is dying).

[Music]

This is followed, after a recitative, by a rapturous, descending passage leading into an ecstatic melody: "Alle meine Pulse schlagen" (All my pulses now are beating) as she sees her lover approaching.

[Music]

The music of the Wolf's Glen scene long has been considered the most expressive rendering of the gruesome that is to be found in a musical score. The stage apparatus that goes with it is such that it makes the young sit up and take notice, while their elders, because of its naïveté, are entertained. The ghost of _Max's_ mother appears to him and strives to warn him away. Cadaverous, spooky-looking animals crawl out from caves in the rocks and spit flames and sparks. Wagner got more than one hint from the scene. But in the crucible of his genius the glen became the lofty Valkyr rock, and the backdrop with the wild hunt the superb "Ride of the Valkyries," while other details are transfigured in that sublime episode, "The Magic Fire Scene."

After a brief introduction, with suggestions of the hunting chorus later in the action, the third act opens with _Agathe's_ lovely cavatina, "And though a cloud the sun obscure." There are a couple of solos for _Aennchen_, and then comes the enchanting chorus of bridesmaids. This is the piece which Richard Wagner, then seven years old, was playing in a room, adjoining which his stepfather, Ludwig Geyer, lay in his last illness. Geyer had shown much interest in the boy and in what might become of him. As he listened to him playing the bridesmaids' chorus from "Der Freischütz" he turned to his wife, Wagner's mother, and said: "What if he should have a talent for music?"

In the next scene are the spirited hunting chorus and the brilliant finale, in which recurs the jubilant melody from _Agathe's_ second act scene.

The overture to "Der Freischütz" is the first in which an operatic composer unreservedly has made use of melodies from the opera itself. Beethoven, in the third "Leonore" overture, utilizes the theme of _Florestan's_ air and the trumpet call. Weber has used not merely thematic material but complete melodies. Following the beautiful passage for horns at the beginning of the overture (a passage which, like _Agathe's_ prayer, has been taken up into the Protestant hymnal) is the music of _Max's_ outcry when, in the opera, he senses rather than sees the passage of _Zamiel_ across the stage, after which comes the sombre music of _Max's_ air: "Hatt denn der Himmel mich verlassen?" (Am I then by heaven forsaken?). This leads up to the music of _Agathe's_ outburst of joy when she sees her lover approaching; and this is given complete.

The structure of this overture is much like that of the overture to "Tannhäuser" by Richard Wagner. There also is a resemblance in contour between the music of _Agathe's_ jubilation and that of _Tannhäuser's_ hymn to Venus. Wagner worshipped Weber. Without a suggestion of plagiarism, the contour of Wagner's melodic idiom is that of Weber's. The resemblance to Weber in the general structure of the finales to the first acts of "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin" is obvious. Even in some of the leading motives of the Wagner music-dramas, the student will find the melodic contour of Weber still persisting. What could be more in the spirit of Weber than the ringing _Parsifal_ motive, one of the last things from the pen of Richard Wagner?

Indeed the importance of Weber in the logical development of music and specifically of opera, lies in the fact that he is the founder of the romantic school in music;--a school of which Wagner is the culmination. Weber is as truly the forerunner of Wagner as Haydn is of Mozart, and Mozart of Beethoven. From the "Freischütz" Wagner derived his early predilection for legendary subjects, as witness the "Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," and "Lohengrin," from which it was but a step to the mythological subject of the "Ring" dramas.

"Der Freischütz" is heard far too rarely in this country. But Weber's importance as the founder of the romantic school and as the inspired forerunner of Wagner long has been recognized. Without this recognition there would be missing an important link in the evolution of music and, specifically, of opera.

EURYANTHE

Opera in three acts by Weber. Book, by Helmine von Chezy, adapted from "L'Histoire de Gérard de Nevers et de la belle et vertueuse Euryanthe, sa mie." Produced, Vienna, Kärnthnerthor Theatre (Theatre at the Carinthian Gate), October 25, 1823. New York, by Carl Anschütz, at Wallack's Theatre, Broadway and Broome Street, 1863; Metropolitan Opera House, December 23, 1887, with Lehmann, Brandt, Alvary, and Fischer, Anton Seidl conducting.

CHARACTERS

EURYANTHE DE SAVOIE _Soprano_ EGLANTINE DE PUISET _Mezzo-Soprano_ LYSIART DE FORÊT _Baritone_ ADOLAR DE NEVERS _Tenor_ LOUIS VI _Bass_

_Time_--Beginning of the Twelfth Century.

_Place_--France.