In 1824 Weber wrote almost no music at all. His health was dire, yet he was in the dilemma of finding himself, with the increasing fame and popularity of Der Freischütz, suddenly an international figure. His doctor advised him strongly that unless he took a year's complete rest in Italy, he might last no more than a few months or even weeks; but when a commission came in from Covent Garden, inviting him to write a new opera and conduct performances also of Der Freischütz and Preciosa, the desperate need to provide for his family impelled him to take on the trip even though he knew he would never survive it. He wrote Oberon (unexpectedly to an English libretto by James Robinson Planché), went to London, was able to conduct the first twelve performances of it, but then, tragically but inevitably, died there of his tuberculosis in the middle of it all. Oberon was therefore Weber's last work of any consequence; some of the numbers of the opera were written close to the day of the first night, but last of all was this overture, entirely drawn from themes from the opera and one of his very best pieces, written just three days before the hugely successful premiere on 12 April 1826. He died on 5 June.

sources

A  Autograph score (1826), in the National Library of Russia, St Petersburg. Though Weber conducted from B, it is believed that nothing in A was later superseded by any material revisions made by the composer himself

B  Copyist's score of complete opera in three volumes, in the British Library (shelf mark Add. Ms. 27746–8). B was used at the first performance in 1826 conducted by Weber; some of the pencil corrections are probably in his hand

P  First edition, published in parts by Schlesinger, Berlin in 1828

Pe  Full score, published by Peters, Leipzig in 1871

Br  Full score, published by Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig c.1905; even the most recent Wiesbaden printings are identical

For this overture (unlike Freischütz where Br and Pe are of roughly equal merit) it must be recommended that Pe be eschewed, being impossibly corrupt; for example in bars 10–15, 91–2 the entire Pk part is missing. From the number of corrections below for which “Pe is correct”.