This month's clip is the last of a set of three related clips, joining Mozart from last month and Salieri from the month before; it is an excerpt from Weber's most famous work, the scintillating Der Freischütz. I admit that, except for the overture and a few select excerpts, I was pretty unfamiliar with the work until quite recently; one can't know everything. (I'll keep trying, though). I was so happy to make its acquaintance! The work is chock full of such wonderful, inventive passages, not surprisingly, to me, given what I know of his other works. In this month's excerpt, from the opening of Act I, Kilian, the master shooter who just put on a display of superior shooting prowess, ridicules his rival, Max, with boastful taunts. Each time, Kilian finishes with cruel laughing, which is then taken up by the townspeople, in a brilliant bit of choral writing by Weber. It is a fun and clever way to set the scene and draw the audience into the drama.