opportunities offered (such as an invitation to become musical director at Hesse Cassel) he refused to change his field of labor, inspired by a desperate determination to conquer the indifference of the Saxon court. "Der Freischütz" had set Germany on fire, but its composer waited a year before he was privileged to produce it in Dresden. Nearly three months before that occurrence he received an invitation to compose an opera for the Kärnthnerthor theatre, in Vienna, under the management of Barbaja. He chose the blue-stocking, Helmina von Chezy, as his collaborator, and began work on "Euryanthe." It was another tremendous stride in the path of progress; but the world did not know it, for now Weber was the forward man leading the way into the hitherto unexplored fields of dramatic music. He went to Vienna in September, 1823, to bring out his new work. Of all the incidents of the memorable visit none is more significant than his meeting with Beethoven. It was a tardy meeting. As lad and youth he had been in Vienna without manifesting the slightest desire to meet the great master. In his self-elected capacity as critic he had attacked the symphonies in E-flat and B-flat. It is not improbable that it was the study of "Fidelio," which he produced at Prague, and afterward at Dresden, that opened his mind to the significant relationship which Beethoven bore to his own efforts to reanimate a national art-spirit in Germany. At any rate when the composer of "Euryanthe" went to Vienna it was as a musician filled with veneration for the composer of "Fidelio," and the reception which he met with at the hands of the great man touched him most profoundly. "We dined together in the happiest mood," Weber wrote to his wife; "the stern, rough man paid me as much attention as if I were a lady he was courting, and served me at table with the most delicate care. How proud I felt to receive all this attention and regard from the great master-spirit; the day will remain forever impressed on my mind and those of all who were present." Beethoven, it is said, promised to attend the first performance of "Euryanthe," which took place on October 25, but did not. He would have heard nothing of the music if he had, but there is a story that after the representation, which was tremendously successful, he wrote to Weber: "I am glad, I am glad! For this is the way the German must get the upper hand of the Italian sing-song." The success of the opera was not lasting, however. It was marred by the dramatic faults of its book, and after Weber's departure its score was horribly disfigured by excisions made by Conradin Kreutzer. [Illustration: MONUMENT TO WEBER IN DRESDEN.--From a photograph. Ernst Rietschel, Sculptor.]