Sunday, February 19, 2017

E.T.A. Hoffman

As many of us know, E.T.A. Hoffman, also known as Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman, is a leading writer during Beethoven's time period. not a lot of us know of his musical works, though! E.T.A. Hoffman is recognized as the father of science fiction writing, fantasy writing, as well as horror writing. He is also famous for reviewing a lot of Beethoven's performances; he referred to Beethoven's music as being in a "heroic style".
The opera "Undine" by E.T.A.Hoffman is a three act play that is based of the libretto by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué who wrote the story Undine. The reason he wrote this piece was because he was part of the chamber court in Berlin. It was first performed at Königliches Schauspielhaus, Berlin. It was performed on August 3 1816. Surprisingly to Hoffman this would be one of his greatest operas that he ever composed. It was so successful that it ran 25 more times. The only reason it was stopped was due to a fire burning the theater down during the 25th performance.
 The piece you are listening to is the overture of "Undine". I find this piece very interesting because you can hear a lot of how he was influenced by Beethoven and Mozart. He has a theme and he sticks with it throughout. Hoffman has a section in the piece that sounds very similar to a Beethoven piece. By far this is a ordinary overture. I would say Mozart's overtures are not ordinary.
My knowledge on overtures are slim so I am assuming that the form is theme and variations. I also believe it is very fitting during his time period. The main melody from the very beginning comes back every so often and every time something different happens to it.
Funnily enough, Hoffman and his reviewers declared this as the "best German Romantic opera".  Not only was he during Beethoven's time period of the romanticism era but his music and writings are about all people not just the higher aristocrats.


*FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE HERE IS CARL MARIA VON WEBER'S REVIEW OF THE OPERA*
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6 comments:

  1. Michaela YearyMarch 8, 2017 at 7:38 AM

    I find it amusing that Hoffman was surprised by success. I wonder if he just sort of wrote something because he had to, and then it turned out to be a major hit with the people.

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  2. Erin SkaggsMarch 31, 2017 at 3:11 PM

    I had no idea that Hoffman wrote music at all. Why is the fact that he wrote music so unknown if he's such a famous historical figure? Also it would be interesting to know if he incorporated his ideas of horror writing into his music.

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  3. UnknownApril 10, 2017 at 10:52 AM

    That's so interesting that no one even talks about his composition. I didn't know he composed music at all, I just thought he was a writer! I wonder if he knew that his reviews would one day be valued higher than his music or if he knew that at the time.

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  4. UnknownApril 25, 2017 at 10:12 AM

    I'm sure we've probably hit this in class at some point, but it amazes me that he worked in so many different areas. I didn't realize he composed, or even did as much writing beyond reviews. Great piece though! It is surprising to me that he was not well known.

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  5. jmmessamoreMay 4, 2017 at 6:37 PM

    I'd be interested to see how his career would've turned out if he became a librettist considering his fanaticism with writing science fiction novels and such. Like Erin said, His horror music would have to be really interesting to hear. I'm curious what he would've made for aliens and stuff.

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  6. UnknownMay 5, 2017 at 6:05 PM

    Hoffman was an intersting figure to me when we first talked about him in class, but I had no idea that he actually wrote any music. And the music itself is actually interesting!

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