Lecture: Romanticism according to Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
Jérôme Lejeune, musicologist and artistic advisor to the Stavelot Festival
Musical accompaniment by
Fanny Sarlette, clarinet
Julie Noiret, piano
Works by Carl Maria von Weber and Johannes Brahms
In the imagery of nascent German Romanticism, Carl Maria von Weber embodies aspects that his two famous contemporaries, Beethoven and Schubert, did not illustrate. On the one hand, this involves the captivating virtuosity he masterfully displays on the piano, and which he also entrusts to instruments then in their infancy, such as the clarinet. This aspect will be demonstrated live by two young musicians from our region. But it is above all in the field of opera that he is most innovative, with works whose dramatic intensity and sense of the fantastical profoundly inspired composers such as Richard Wagner in the following generation. Weber was also a theatre director, and in this field he developed new visions that revolutionised the concept of how opera houses were organised.