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Donald Macleod traces the origins of Weber's opera Der Freischütz and, as part of Radio 3's Into the Forest season, discusses how its woodland setting captured the romantic imagination of his audience.

The first performance was witnessed by E T A Hoffmann, the poet Heinrich Heine, and a 12-year-old Felix Mendelssohn. Heine said that the opera became so popular that even the dogs barked tunes from it.

Hector Berlioz eulogised that a score as irreproachable as Freischütz, as constantly interesting from beginning to end . . . Intelligence, imagination, genius shine everywhere with a radiance the force of which might dazzle any but eagle eyes, were it not also for a sensitiveness, inexhaustible as well as restrained, which softens its glare.

The thunderous success of Der Freischütz brought Weber international renown and made him the undisputed composer - par excellence - of German opera.
Mary Shelley saw a production of the opera in London in 1824, which may have influenced her novel Frankenstein, and wrote to a friend: the music is wild but often beautiful, when the magic bullets are cast they fill the stage with all sorts of horrors...all forms of a very fine scene...while every part of the house...is enveloped in darkness...

Der Freischütz (Huntsmen's Chorus)
LSO Chorus and Orchestra
Colin Davis, conductor

Der Freischütz (Wolf's Glen Act 2 Finale)
LSO Chorus and Orchestra
Colin Davis, conductor

Euryanthe Overture
Staatskapelle Dresden
Marek Janowski, conductor

Konzertstück for piano and orchestra, Op 79
Alfred Brendel, piano
London Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

Producer: Rosie Boulton for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Wales.