You look as vainly for such touches as the divine last dozen bars “Or sai chi l’onore” in “Don Giovanni,” or the deep emotion of the sobbing bass at “the first fruits of them that sleep” in “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” as for the stately splendour of “Come and thank Him” in the “Christmas Oratorio,” or the passion of “Tristan.”  His music never develops in step with the movement of the drama he treats:  if he writes a tragic scene, he is apt to commence with a scream; and if he is not at his best, then the scream may degenerate into a whimper before the moment for the climax has arrived.  Like Spohr, with whom he had much in common, despite the difference between his mercurial temperament and the pedagogic gravity of the composer of “The Last Judgment,” he set great store upon his learning, and was fond of trivial themes that admitted of obvious contrapuntal treatment.  Even when he avoided that failing, his music is often uncouth and ponderous, while on its surface lies a superfluous, highly-coloured froth.  The basses move with leaden-footed reluctance; the melodies consist largely of ineffective arpeggios on long-drawn chords; the embroidery seems greatly in excess of modest needs.  All this may be conceded without affecting Weber’s claim to a place amongst the composers; for that claim is supported in a lesser degree by the gifts which he shared, even if his share was small, with the greater masters of music, than by his miraculous power of vividly drawing and painting in music the things that kindled his imagination.  Drawing and painting, I say; for whereas the other musicians sang the emotions that they experienced, Weber’s music gives you the impression that he depicted the things he saw, that melody and harmony were to him as lines and colours to the painter.  He is first, and perhaps greatest, of all the musicians who have attempted landscape; and that froth of seemingly superfluous colour and excess of melodic embroidery, instead of being in excess and superfluous, are the very essence of his music.  Being a factor of the Romantic movement, that mighty rebellion against the tyranny of a world of footrules and ledgers, he lived and worked in a world where two and two might make five or seven or any number you pleased, and where footrules were unknown; he took small interest in drama taken out of the lives of ordinary men and enacted amidst everyday surroundings; his imagination lit up only when he thought of haunted glens and ghouls and evil spirits, the fantastic world and life that goes on underneath the ocean, or of men or women held by ghastly spells.  Hence his operas are not so much musical dramas as series of tableaux, gorgeous glowing pictures of unheard-of things; in them we must expect only to find the elfish, the fantastic, the wild and weird and grotesquely horrible; and to look for drama, captivating loveliness, and emotional utterance, is to look for qualities which Weber did not try to attain, or only in a small measure