A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Weber's Last Waltz

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WEBER'S LAST WALTZ—Letzter Gedanke, Dernière Pensée. The piece known by these names and beginning thus, and once enormously popular—

{ \relative e'' { \key aes \major \time 3/4 \partial 4
 ees8( aes | aes g g f) des( f | %fourth note of this bar corrected to f per note in Appendix page 815
 f ees ees\noBeam ees,)[ aes( c]) | %end line 1
 c( bes) c( bes) c( bes) | aes } }


is not Weber's at all, but Reissiger's, and forms no. 5 of his 'Danses brillantes pour le PF.,' written in 1822, and published by Peters of Leipzig in 1824. The probable cause of its being ascribed to Weber is that a MS. copy of it, given by Reissiger to Weber on the eve of his departure for London, was found among Weber's papers after his death here. It has been also published as a song—in Germany 'Wie ich bin verwichen'; in London as 'Weber's Farewell' (Chappell), 'Song of the dying child' (Cramer), etc.
[ G. ]