Weber, Fridolin
Weber Franz Anton von, *1734 Zell im Wiesental, †16 April 1812 Mannheim, German conductor, violinist and viola player, brother of Fridolin. After a period of clerical service, he began his music activity in 1761. From 1778 he was director and Kapellmeister of a theatre troupe in Lübeck, from 1779 he stayed in Eutin, in 1787 in Vienna, where he claimed the title of nobility from an extinct Austrian family, and in Kassel, in 1788/1789 and in Hamburg in 1791, in 1789/1790 in Meiningen, from 1791 to 1794 in Bayreuth, from 1795 in Salzburg. He directed his own family theatre troupe (Webersche Schauspielgesellschaft) from 1785, which staged both dramas (by A.W. Iffland and A. von Kotzebue) as well as operas and Singspiels (by W.A. Mozart, Ch. Mozart, Ch.G. Neefe, K. Dittersdorf and Fridolin and Edmund Weber – sons of F.A. Weber from his first marriage with Maria Anna W, née Fumetti, 1736–1784). Members of the ensemble included, among others F.A. Weber’s second wife, Genovefa née Brenner (1764–1798), soprano singer, mother of Carl Maria von Weber. After 1800 F.A. Weber devoted himself mainly to nurturing his son’s education and musical career.
Literature: H. Schuler Franz Anton Weber als Freimaurer, „Acta Mozartiana” XL, 1993.