Carl Maria von Weber

Book excerpt: The first edition of John Warrack's study of Weber was published in 1968 and quickly became recognized as the standard 'life and works' - indeed the best book on Weber in any language. The second edition was produced in 1976 to mark the 150th anniversary of Weber's death in London, and is reissued here. John Warrack's study gives a detailed account of the life in which the music is discussed (with analysis and music examples) in chronological order. It is a scholarly study based on first-hand research in German and other archives, but it is also elegantly written, and fully alive to general cultural and historical implications. It is a book for the music-lover as well as the scholar. This second edition contains a new concluding chapter, an important select bibliography of over 100 entries, and a useful family tree which was not in the first edition.