Weber’s mother died of tuberculosis when he was eleven. Later that year Weber went to Salzburg, to study with Michael Haydn (the brother of the famous Joseph Haydn), and later to Munich. He started to publish some piano music, and even composed an opera. When he was 14 the family moved to Freiberg in Saxony. He had an opera performed there, and he started to write articles as a critic in a Leipzig newspaper.