Gottfried Weber

1779–1839

Variations

Gottfried Weber, today remembered chiefly as a music theorist and as the author of the three-volume Versuch einer geordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst (1817–21), also emerged as a composer after completing his law studies, as long as his increasing professional obligations still left him sufficient time for composition — from 1814 onward Weber served as a judge in Mainz, and in 1818 he moved to Darmstadt as Hofgerichtsrat, later rising to the position of Generalstaatsprokurator at the Court of Cassation.
Like his namesake Carl Maria von Weber, to whom he was closely connected in friendship though not related, Gottfried Weber repeatedly included a guitar in his chamber works and songs, already so in his Variationen für die Guitarre mit Begleitung von Flöte oder Violoncell, Erstes Werk, whose theme is unmistakably identical with the melody later transmitted as the German folk song Gestern Abend war Vetter Michel da.
Yet Weber does not identify his variation theme by name at all — neither as this song nor under any other title — which suggests that at the time of composition — probably around 1805 — the melody was not yet exclusively associated with the later canonical text, but circulated instead as a popular dance or common-use tune, perhaps also sung as a street song with varying or even improvised lyrics. Goethe already mentions the later song title in a stanza of his satirical poem Musen und Grazien in der Mark (1796) as an obviously familiar phrase — but the later song text connected with this saying is certainly not yet implied here::

Laßt den Witzling uns besticheln!
Glücklich! wenn ein deutscher Mann,
Seinem Freunde, Vetter Micheln,
Guten Abend bieten kann.
Wie ist der Gedanke labend!
Solch ein Edler bleibt uns nah!
Immer sagt man: gestern Abend
War doch Vetter Michel da.

In Weber’s time it was in any case already common practice, for commercial reasons, to advertise fashionable musical topics by name in printed editions — such as Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre or Nel cor più non mi sento. It is highly unlikely that Weber, in his very first publication — his entry onto the musical market, so to speak — would have omitted doing so had the melody already carried the text later transmitted through Ludwig Erk’s folk-song collections from the mid-nineteenth century onward.
Weber’s Variationen are dedicated to his future wife, “dem Fräulein Therese von Edel”, whom he married on 13 February 1806 and who died already in August 1808, only twenty-two years old, shortly after the birth of a son. Since Weber still refers to her here by her maiden name, the composition must have originated before 1806. Nothing else is known about the genesis or possible private background of the work — but one readily imagines the two of them making music together at home, the young Gottfried on the violoncello alongside the even younger Therese with her guitar.
The work remained in circulation for an extraordinarily long time. Weber’s debut publication appeared at Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig in 1807. About ten years later, around 1817/18, the Variationen were reissued, explicitly as “Ersten Werkes 2te Auflage”, this time according to the title page by Schott in Mainz, with whom Weber by then maintained close ties through geographical proximity. On the reverse side of the violoncello part the publisher densely advertises seventeen, in some cases rather substantial, compositions, listing not only its own editions but also those of other publishers such as Simrock and Gombart. The present variations themselves are included as well, explicitly referring back to Breitkopf: “Thema mit Variat. f. Guit. u. Vcll. od. Flöte, Op. 1. Leipz. B. u. Härtel, 8 Gr. Mainz Hofmus. Handl. 36 kr.”
So far, so clear. But then matters become somewhat puzzling. The same work was also published in Paris by Richault as Variations Pour Guitare et Violoncelle ou Flûte, Œuv. 2., and, judging from the low plate number 243.R., probably already around 1810–12 — that is, before the second edition of the work was issued by Schott and during the early years of Richault’s activity.
Changed or even duplicated opus numbers are a recurring phenomenon in the early nineteenth century and may have had various causes. In Weber’s case one can only speculate. Did Weber himself republish his debut work in Paris, with or without Breitkopf’s knowledge? More likely, Richault acquired a licence from Breitkopf, just as he systematically acquired outside repertory from the very beginning in order to furnish his young publishing house with editions. The reason for the altered opus number, however, remains unclear. Was the work perhaps not supposed to appear to the Parisian public as the effort of a beginner? Or did one of the publishers involved — or even Weber himself, the composing jurist — wish to obscure the fact that the Paris edition was in reality the already published Opus 1?
At any rate, no other Opus 2 by Weber is known, and the editorial disguise proved so successful that the identity of Opus 1 and 2 has remained unnoticed in musicological literature to this day. In the encyclopaedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Opus 2 (unlike Opus 1) was described by Arno Lemke in 1968 as “untraceable”, a judgement subsequently perpetuated through repeated reuse of his catalogue in various publications, including MGG Online and the German Wikipedia article at the time of writing (2026). Yet the score has in fact been quietly resting, in a historical edition, in the music library of the Munich Municipal Library since presumably around 1935, and by now both the Schott and the Richault editions can even be found online at IMSLP (where someone has, incidentally, already noticed that both are the same composition, since both appear there under Variations in C major, Op. 1).
It is precisely the supposedly “untraceable” Richault edition as Opus 2, however, that reveals how extraordinarily long this duo remained in circulation. Although the plate number indicates publication around 1810–12, the copy from the collection of the guitarist Vahdah Olcott-Bickford, now viewable at IMSLP, was printed considerably later: the address given in the imprint, “Chez Richault, (Simon), Editeur de Musique, Boulevard Poissonniere, No. 16.”, is recognisably a later alteration owing to the smaller typeface, and Richault occupied that address only from 1825 until 1841.
The practice of removing outdated information from portions of engraved copper plates and replacing it with updated wording was by no means unusual, and we encounter it once more in the Munich copy that stood on the music stand during my recording linked below from the year 2001. It is a much later reprint, still struck from the same plates bearing the number 243.R., but with a further revised title page, now also carrying an altered price and the new imprint: “Paris, Costallat & Cie. Editeurs, 15, Chaussée d’Antin et Bould. Haussmann, 40.”
The firm Éditions Costallat et Cie, founded in 1894, acquired Richault’s catalogue in 1898 and with it Weber’s Variationen. The address given suggests a reprint dating from between 1898 and 1905 — a full hundred years after the creation of this small chamber work, perhaps inspired by a romantic and very likely also musical liaison, long after the death of the composer and even longer after that of the dedicatee.

Andreas Grün

PLAY Variations for Violoncello and Guitar (SoundCloud)