Jacob Gottfried Weber (March 1, 1779,
FreinsheimFreinsheim is a town and a municipality in the district of Bad Dürkheim, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the eastern edge of the Palatinate forest, approx. 6 km north-east of Bad Dürkheim and 17 km west of Ludwigshafen. It has a preserved city wall more than one kilometer long...
– September 21, 1839,
Bad KreuznachBad Kreuznach is the capital of the district of Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is located on the Nahe river, a tributary of the Rhine...
) was a prominent German writer on music, especially on
music theoryMusic theory is the field of study that deals with how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It identifies patterns that govern composers' techniques. In a grand sense, music theory distills and analyzes the parameters or elements of music – rhythm, harmony , melody,...
, composer, and jurist.
From 1824 to 1839 he was the editor of
Cäcilia, a musical periodical published in
MainzMainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the...
, which influenced musical thought in Germany during the early Romantic era.
His most important work is his
Versuch einer geordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst (Theory of Musical Composition) (Mainz, B.
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Jacob Gottfried Weber (March 1, 1779,
FreinsheimFreinsheim is a town and a municipality in the district of Bad Dürkheim, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the eastern edge of the Palatinate forest, approx. 6 km north-east of Bad Dürkheim and 17 km west of Ludwigshafen. It has a preserved city wall more than one kilometer long...
– September 21, 1839,
Bad KreuznachBad Kreuznach is the capital of the district of Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is located on the Nahe river, a tributary of the Rhine...
) was a prominent German writer on music, especially on
music theoryMusic theory is the field of study that deals with how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It identifies patterns that govern composers' techniques. In a grand sense, music theory distills and analyzes the parameters or elements of music – rhythm, harmony , melody,...
, composer, and jurist.
From 1824 to 1839 he was the editor of
Cäcilia, a musical periodical published in
MainzMainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the...
, which influenced musical thought in Germany during the early Romantic era.
His most important work is his
Versuch einer geordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst (Theory of Musical Composition) (Mainz, B. Schott, 1817-21), which introduces several concepts that have since become important in the study of music theory. In this work Weber introduces the idea of
Mehrdeutigkeit, that is, “multiple meaning” of individual tones and harmonies, based on their context in a piece of music. “To analyze a chord, a theorist must ask not only ‘What notes are in it?’ but also 'How is it behaving in the harmonic progression?'" (Thompson). In the same work, Weber also introduces for the first time the analytical symbol by which a chord is identified by the Roman numeral of the scale-degree number of its root. This Roman-numeral system is in widespread use today as chord symbols in music.
Weber’s
Theory of Musical Composition was the first work on music theory to be translated into English for publication in the United States (transl. by James F. Warner. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1846).
See also
- Difficile lectu (Mozart)
Difficile lectu, K. 559, is a canon composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The music, in F major, is set for three singers. The words are probably by Mozart himself....
-- a tale Weber told about Mozart in the pages of Caecilia.
External links