T and hoffman biography. Hoffmann: works, a complete list, analysis and analysis of books, a brief biography of the writer and interesting life facts

To the 240th anniversary of the birth

Standing at Hoffmann's grave in the Jerusalem cemetery in the center of Berlin, I marveled at the fact that on a modest monument he was presented first of all as an adviser to the court of appeal, a lawyer, and only then as a poet, musician and artist. However, after all, he himself admitted: “On weekdays I am a lawyer and perhaps a little bit of a musician, on Sunday afternoon I draw, and in the evenings until late at night I am a very witty writer.” All his life he is a great partner.

The third on the monument was the baptismal name Wilhelm. Meanwhile, he himself replaced it with the name of the idolized Mozart - Amadeus. I accidentally replaced it. After all, he divided humanity into two unequal parts: "One consists only of good people, but bad musicians or not musicians at all, the other consists of true musicians." No need to take it literally: the lack of an ear for music is not the main sin. "Good people", philistines, devote themselves to the interests of the purse, which leads to irreversible perversions of humanity. According to Thomas Mann, they cast a wide shadow. Philistines are made, musicians are born. The part to which Hoffmann belonged is the people of the spirit, not the belly - musicians, poets, artists. "Good people" most often do not understand them, despise them, laugh at them. Hoffmann realizes that his heroes have nowhere to run, to live among the philistines is their cross. And he himself carried it to the grave. And his life by today's standards was short (1776-1822)

Bio pages

Blows of fate accompanied Hoffmann from birth to death. He was born in Königsberg, where the "narrow-faced" Kant was professor at that time. His parents quickly separated, and from the age of 4 until the university he lived in the house of his uncle, a successful lawyer, but a snobby and pedantic person. An orphan with living parents! The boy grew up closed, which was facilitated by his small stature and the appearance of a freak. With external laxity and buffoonery, his nature was extremely vulnerable. An exalted psyche will determine much in his work. Nature endowed him with the sharpest mind and observation. The soul of a child, a teenager, vainly longing for love and affection, did not harden, but, wounded, suffered. Significant confession: “My youth is like a parched desert, without flowers and shade.”

He considered university studies in law as an unfortunate duty, for he truly loved only music. Official service in Glogau, Berlin, Poznan and especially in the provincial Plock was a burden. But still, in Poznan, happiness smiled: he married a charming Polish woman, Mikhalina. The bear, although alien to his creative quest and spiritual needs, will become his true friend and support to the end. He will fall in love more than once, but always without reciprocity. He will capture the torment of unrequited love in many works.

At 28, Hoffmann is a government official in Warsaw occupied by the Prussians. Here the composer's abilities, and the singing gift, and the talent of the conductor were revealed. Two of his singspiel were successfully staged. “The Muses still guide me through life as holy intercessors and patrons; I surrender myself entirely to them,” he writes to a friend. But he does not neglect the service either.

Napoleon's invasion of Prussia, the chaos and confusion of the war years put an end to a short-lived prosperity. A wandering, financially unsettled, sometimes hungry life began: Bamberg, Leipzig, Dresden ... A two-year-old daughter died, his wife fell seriously ill, he himself fell ill with a nervous fever. He took on any job: a home teacher of music and singing, a sheet music dealer, a bandmaster, an artist-decorator, a theater director, a reviewer of the Universal Musical Gazette ... And in the eyes of the philistine townsfolk, this small, nondescript, impoverished and powerless little man is a beggar at the door burgher salons, jester pea. Meanwhile, in Bamberg, he showed himself as a man of the theater, anticipating the principles of both Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. Here he developed as a universal artist, whom the romantics dreamed of.

Hoffmann in Berlin

In the autumn of 1814, with the help of a friend, Hoffmann secured a seat at a criminal court in Berlin. For the first time in many years of wandering, he had the hope of finding a permanent home. In Berlin, he found himself at the center of literary life. Here acquaintances began with Ludwig Tieck, Adalbert von Chamisso, Clemens Brentano, Friedrich Fouquet de la Motte, the author of the story "Ondine", the artist Philipp Veit (son of Dorothea Mendelssohn). Once a week, friends who named their community after the hermit Serapion gathered in a coffee shop on Unter den Linden (Serapionsabende). Stayed up late. Hoffmann read them his latest works, they evoked a lively reaction, he did not want to disperse. Interests overlap. Hoffmann began to write music for Fouquet's story, he agreed to become a librettist, and in August 1816 the romantic opera Ondine was staged at the Royal Berlin Theater. There were 14 performances, but a year later the theater burned down. The wonderful scenery perished in the fire, which, according to the sketches of Hoffmann, was made by Karl Schinkel himself, a renowned artist and court architect, who at the beginning of the 19th century. built almost half of Berlin. And since I studied at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute with Tamara Schinkel, a direct descendant of the great master, I also feel myself involved in Hoffmann's Ondine.

Over time, music lessons faded into the background. Hoffmann, as it were, transferred his musical vocation to his beloved hero, his alter ego, Johann Kreisler, who carries with him a high musical theme from work to work. Hoffmann was an enthusiast of music, he called it "the parent language of nature."

Being in the highest degree Homo Ludens (a person playing), Hoffmann in Shakespeare's way perceived the whole world as a theater. His close friend was the famous actor Ludwig Devrient, whom he met at Lutter and Wegner's tavern, where they spent their evenings boisterously, indulging in both libations and inspired humorous improvisations. Both were sure that they had doubles and amazed the regulars with the art of reincarnation. These gatherings cemented his fame as a half-mad alcoholic. Alas, in the end he really became a drunkard and behaved eccentrically and pretentiously, but the further, the clearer it became that in June 1822 in Berlin, the greatest magician and sorcerer of German literature died from dryness of the spinal cord in agony and lack of money.

Hoffmann's literary legacy

Hoffmann himself saw his vocation in music, but gained fame as a writer. It all started with "Fantasy in the manner of Callot" (1814-15), then followed by "Night stories" (1817), a four-volume short story "The Serapion Brothers" (1819-20), a kind of romantic "Decameron". Hoffmann wrote a number of long stories and two novels - the so-called "black", or Gothic novel "Satan's Elixirs" (1815-16) about the monk Medard, in which two creatures sit, one of them is an evil genius, and the unfinished "Worldly views of a cat Murra" (1820-22). In addition, fairy tales were composed. The most famous of them is the Christmas one - "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". With the approach of the New Year, the Nutcracker ballet is being staged in theaters and on television. Everyone knows the music of Tchaikovsky, but only a few know that the ballet was written based on the fairy tale of Hoffmann.

About the collection "Fantasy in the manner of Callot"

The 17th-century French artist Jacques Callot is known for his grotesque drawings and etchings, in which reality appears in a fantastic guise. The ugly figures on his graphic sheets depicting carnival scenes or theatrical performances frightened and attracted. Kallo's manner impressed Hoffmann and gave him a certain artistic stimulus.

The central work of the collection was the short story "The Golden Pot", which has a subtitle - "A Tale from New Times". Fabulous incidents happen in the modern writer Dresden, where next to the ordinary world there is a hidden world of sorcerers, wizards and evil sorceresses. However, as it turns out, they lead a dual existence, some of them perfectly combine magic and sorcery with service in archives and government offices. Such is the grouchy archivist Lindhorst - the lord of the Salamanders, such is the evil old sorceress Rauer, who trades at the city gates, the daughter of a turnip and a dragon feather. It was her basket of apples that the protagonist, student Anselm, accidentally overturned, and all his misadventures started from this trifle.

Each chapter of the tale is called by the author "vigilium", which in Latin means - night guard. Night motifs are generally characteristic of romantics, but here the twilight lighting enhances the mystery. Student Anselm is a bungler, from the breed of those who, if a sandwich falls, will certainly be buttered down, but he also believes in miracles. He is the bearer of poetic feeling. At the same time, he hopes to take his rightful place in society, to become a gofrat (outside councilor), especially since Veronika, the daughter of con-rector Paulman, whom he takes care of, has firmly decided in life: she will become the wife of a gofrat and will show off in the morning in the window in an elegant toilet to the surprise of passers-by dandies. But by chance, Anselm touched the world of the miraculous: suddenly, in the foliage of a tree, he saw three amazing golden-green snakes with sapphire eyes, he saw and disappeared. “He felt how something unknown stirred in the depths of his being and caused him that blissful and tormenting sorrow that promises a person another, higher being.”

Hoffmann leads his hero through many trials before he ends up in the magical Atlantis, where he connects with the daughter of the powerful ruler of the Salamanders (aka the archivist Lindhorst) - the blue-eyed snake Serpentina. In the finale, everyone acquires a particular appearance. The case ends with a double wedding, for Veronica finds her gofrat - this is the former rival of Anselm Geerbrand.

Yu. K. Olesha, in his notes about Hoffmann, which arose while reading The Golden Pot, asks the question: “Who was he, this crazy man, the only writer of his kind in world literature, with raised eyebrows, a thin nose bent down, with hair standing on end forever?" Perhaps familiarity with his work will help answer this question. I would venture to call him the last romantic and the founder of fantastic realism.

"Sandman" from the collection "Night stories"

The name of the collection "Night Stories" is not accidental. By and large, all Hoffmann's works can be called "night", because he is a poet of gloomy spheres in which a person is still connected with secret forces, a poet of abysses, failures, from which either a double, or a ghost, or a vampire arises. He makes it clear to the reader that he has been in the realm of shadows, even when he dresses his fantasies in a bold and cheerful form.

The Sandman, which he has repeatedly remade, is an undoubted masterpiece. In this story, the struggle between despair and hope, between darkness and light, acquires special tension. Hoffman is sure that the human personality is not something permanent, but unsteady, capable of transforming, bifurcating. Such is the main character of the story, student Nathanael, endowed with a poetic gift.

As a child, he was frightened by the sandman: if you don’t fall asleep, the sandman will come, throw sand in your eyes, and then take your eyes away. Already becoming an adult, Nathaniel cannot get rid of fear. It seems to him that the puppet master Coppelius is a sandman, and Coppola's traveling salesman, who sells glasses and magnifying glasses, is the same Coppelius, i.e. the same sandman. Nathaniel is clearly on the verge of mental illness. In vain Nathaniel's fiancee Clara, a simple and sensible girl, tries to heal him. She correctly says that the terrible and terrible thing that Nathanael constantly talks about happened in his soul, and the outside world had little to do with it. His verses with their gloomy mysticism are boring to her. The romantically exalted Nathanael does not heed her, he is ready to see in her a miserable bourgeois. It is not surprising that the young man falls in love with a mechanical doll, which Professor Spalanzani, with the help of Coppelius, has been making for 20 years and, passing her off as his daughter Ottilia, introduced him into the high society of a provincial town. Nathaniel did not realize that the object of his sighs was a contraption. But they were all deceived. The clockwork doll attended secular meetings, sang and danced as if alive, and everyone admired her beauty and education, although apart from “oh!” and "ah!" she didn't say anything. And in her, Nathanael saw a "kindred soul." What is this if not a mockery of the youthful quixotic nature of the romantic hero?

Nathaniel goes to propose to Ottilie and finds a terrible scene: the quarreling professor and the puppet master are tearing the Ottilie doll to pieces before his eyes. The young man goes crazy and, having climbed the bell tower, rushes down from there.

Apparently, reality itself seemed to Hoffmann a delirium, a nightmare. Wishing to say that people are soulless, he turns his heroes into automata, but the worst thing is that no one notices this. The incident with Ottilie and Nathaniel excited the townspeople. How to be? How to find out if the neighbor is a mannequin? How, finally, to prove that you yourself are not a puppet? Everyone tried to behave as unusually as possible in order to avoid suspicion. The whole story took on the character of a nightmarish phantasmagoria.

"Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (1819) - one of Hoffmann's most grotesque works. This tale partly echoes the Golden Pot. Its plot is quite simple. Thanks to three wonderful golden hairs, the freak Tsakhes, the son of an unfortunate peasant woman, turns out to be wiser, more beautiful, worthy of everyone in the eyes of those around him. With lightning speed he becomes the first minister, receives the hand of the beautiful Candida, until the wizard exposes the vile freak.

“A crazy tale”, “the most humorous of all that I have written,” the author said about it. Such is his manner - to clothe the most serious things in veils of humor. After all, we are talking about a blinded, stupid society that takes “an icicle, a rag for an important person” and creates an idol out of it. By the way, this was also the case in Gogol's The Government Inspector. Hoffmann creates a magnificent satire on the "enlightened despotism" of Prince Paphnutius. “This is not only a purely romantic parable about the eternal philistine hostility of poetry (“Kill all the fairies!” - such is the first order of the authorities. - G.I.), but also a satirical quintessence of German squalor with its claims to great power and ineradicable petty habits, with its police education, with servility and depression of subjects ”(A. Karelsky).

In a dwarf state, where "enlightenment broke out", his program is planned by the prince's valet. He proposes to “cut down forests, make the river navigable, plant potatoes, improve rural schools, plant acacias and poplars, teach youth to sing morning and evening prayers in two voices, pave highways and instill smallpox.” Some of these "enlightenment actions" actually took place in Prussia, Frederick II, who played the role of an enlightened monarch. Enlightenment here took place under the motto: "Drive all dissidents!"

Among the dissidents is the student Balthazar. He is from the breed of true musicians, and therefore suffers among the philistines, i.e. "good people". “In the wonderful voices of the forest, Balthazar heard the inconsolable complaint of nature, and it seemed that he himself should dissolve in this complaint, and his whole existence is a feeling of the deepest insurmountable pain.”

According to the laws of the genre, the fairy tale ends with a happy ending. With the help of theatrical firework-like effects, Hoffmann allows the student Balthazar, "gifted with inner music", who is in love with Candida, to defeat Tsakhes. The savior-sorcerer, who taught Balthazar to pull out three golden hairs from Tsakhes, after which the veil fell from everyone's eyes, makes a wedding gift to the newlyweds. This is a house with a plot where excellent cabbage grows, “pots never boil over” in the kitchen, porcelain does not break in the dining room, carpets do not get dirty in the living room, in other words, quite bourgeois comfort reigns here. This is how romantic irony comes into play. We also met her in the fairy tale “The Golden Pot”, where the lovers received the golden pot at the end. This iconic vessel-symbol replaced the blue Novalis flower, in the light of this comparison, the ruthlessness of Hoffmann's irony became even more obvious.

About the "Worldly Views of the Cat Murr"

The book was conceived as a final one, it intertwined all the themes and features of Hoffmann's manner. Here the tragedy is combined with the grotesque, although they are opposite to each other. The composition itself contributed to this: the biographical notes of the scientist cat are interleaved with pages from the diary of the brilliant composer Johann Kreisler, which Murr used instead of blotters. So the unlucky publisher printed the manuscript, marking the “blotches” of the brilliant Kreisler as “Mac. l." (waste sheets). Who needs the suffering and sorrow of Hoffmann's favorite, his alter ego? What are they good for? Is that to dry the graphomaniac exercises of the learned cat!

Johann Kreisler, a child of poor and ignorant parents, who knew the need and all the vicissitudes of fate, is an itinerant musician-enthusiast. This is a favorite of Hoffmann, he acts in many of his works. Everything that has weight in society is alien to the enthusiast, therefore misunderstanding and tragic loneliness await him. In music and love, Kreisler is carried away far, far into the bright worlds known to him alone. But the more insane for him is the return from this height to the earth, to the hustle and bustle of a small town, to the circle of base interests and petty passions. Nature is unbalanced, constantly torn apart by doubts in people, in the world, in their own creativity. From enthusiastic ecstasy, he easily passes to irritability or to complete misanthropy on the most insignificant occasion. A false chord causes him a fit of despair. “Kreisler is ridiculous, almost ridiculous, he constantly shocks respectability. This lack of contact with the world reflects the complete rejection of the surrounding life, its stupidity, ignorance, thoughtlessness and vulgarity ... Kreisler rises alone against the whole world, and he is doomed. His rebellious spirit perishes in mental illness” (I. Garin).

But it's not him, but the scientist cat Murr who claims to be the romantic "son of the century." Yes, and the novel is written in his name. Before us is not just a two-tiered book: Kreisleriana and the animal epic Murriana. New here is the Murr line. Murr is not just a philistine. He tries to present himself as an enthusiast, a dreamer. Romantic genius in the form of a cat is a funny idea. Listen to his romantic tirades: “... I know for sure: my homeland is an attic!. The climate of the motherland, its customs, customs - how inextinguishable are these impressions ... Where does such an exalted way of thinking come from in me, such an irresistible desire for higher spheres? Whence such a rare gift to instantly ascend upwards, such courageous, most ingenious jumps worthy of envy? Oh, sweet longing fills my chest! Longing for my native attic rises in me in a powerful wave! I dedicate these tears to you, O beautiful homeland...” What is this if not a murderous parody of the romantic empyreans of the Jena romantics, but even more of the Germanophilism of the Heidelbergers?!

The writer created a grandiose parody of the romantic worldview itself, fixing the symptoms of the crisis of romanticism. It is the interweaving, the unity of the two lines, the collision of parody with a high romantic style that gives rise to something new, unique.

“What truly mature humor, what strength of reality, what anger, what types and portraits and next to it - what a thirst for beauty, what a bright ideal!” Dostoevsky gave such an appraisal of Cat Murr, but this is a worthy assessment of Hoffmann's work as a whole.

Hoffmann's dual world: a riot of fantasy and the "vanity of life"

Each true artist embodies his time and the situation of a person in this time in the artistic language of the era. The artistic language of Hoffmann's time is romanticism. The gap between dream and reality is the basis of the romantic worldview. “The darkness of low truths is dearer to me / The deceit that elevates us” - these words of Pushkin can be put as an epigraph to the work of German romantics. But if the predecessors, building their castles in the air, were carried away from the earthly into the idealized Middle Ages or into the romanticized Hellas, then Hoffmann bravely plunged into the modern reality of Germany. At the same time, he, like no one before him, was able to express anxiety, unsteadiness, the brokenness of the era and the man himself. According to Hoffmann, not only society is divided into parts, each person, his consciousness is split, torn apart. Personality loses its certainty, integrity, hence the motive of duality and madness, so characteristic of Hoffmann. The world is unstable and the human personality is disintegrating. The struggle between despair and hope, between darkness and light, is fought in almost all of his works. Do not give dark forces a place in your soul - that's what worries the writer.

On careful reading, even in the most fantastic works of Hoffmann, such as The Golden Pot, The Sandman, one can find very deep observations of real life. He himself admitted: "I have too much sense of reality." Expressing not so much the harmony of the world as life's dissonance, Hoffmann conveyed it with the help of romantic irony and the grotesque. His works are full of all sorts of spirits and ghosts, incredible things happen: a cat composes poetry, a minister drowns in a chamber pot, a Dresden archivist has a brother - a dragon, and daughters - snakes, and so on and so forth, nevertheless, he wrote about modernity, about the consequences of the revolution, about the era of Napoleonic unrest, which turned a lot in the sleepy way of three hundred German principalities.

He noticed that things began to rule over a person, life is mechanized, automata, soulless dolls take precedence over a person, the individual drowns in the standard. He thought about the mysterious phenomenon of the transformation of all values ​​into exchange value, he saw the new power of money.

What allows the insignificant Tsakhes to turn into the powerful minister Zinnober? Three golden hairs, which the compassionate fairy endowed him with, have miraculous powers. This is by no means a Balzacian understanding of the merciless laws of modern times. Balzac was a doctor of social sciences, and Hoffmann was a visionary, whom science fiction helped to expose the prose of life and build brilliant guesses about the future. It is significant that the fairy tales, where he gave free rein to unbridled fantasy, have subtitles - "Tales from New Times". He not only judged contemporary reality as an unspiritual realm of "prose", he made it the subject of depiction. “Intoxicated with fantasies, Hoffmann,” as the prominent Germanist Albert Karelsky wrote about him, “is in fact discouragingly sober.”

Departing from life, in the last story “The Corner Window”, Hoffmann shared his secret: “You, what good, do you think that I am already getting better? Far from it ... But this window is a consolation for me: here life again appeared to me in all its diversity, and I feel how close its never-ending bustle is to me.

Hoffmann's Berlin house with a corner window and his grave in the Jerusalem cemetery were "given" to me by Mina Polyanskaya and Boris Antipov, from the breed of enthusiasts so revered by our hero of the day.

Hoffmann in Russia

The shadow of Hoffmann beneficially overshadowed Russian culture in the 19th century, as philologists A.B. Botnikova and my postgraduate classmate Juliet Chavchanidze, who traced the relationship between Gogol and Hoffmann, spoke in detail and convincingly. Even Belinsky wondered why Europe does not put the "brilliant" Hoffmann next to Shakespeare and Goethe. "Russian Hoffmann" was called Prince Odoevsky. Herzen admired him. A passionate admirer of Hoffmann, Dostoevsky wrote about "Cat Murr": "What truly mature humor, what strength of reality, what anger, what types and portraits and next - what a thirst for beauty, what a bright ideal!" This is a worthy assessment of Hoffmann's work as a whole.

In the 20th century, Hoffmann was influenced by Kuzmin, Kharms, Remizov, Nabokov, Bulgakov. Mayakovsky did not mention his name in vain in verse. It was not by chance that Akhmatova chose him as her escort: “Sometimes in the evening / Darkness thickens, / Let Hoffmann be with me / He will reach the corner.”

In 1921, a community of writers formed in Petrograd at the House of Arts, who named themselves after Hoffmann - the Serapion brothers. It included Zoshchenko, Vs. Ivanov, Kaverin, Lunts, Fedin, Tikhonov. They also met weekly to read and discuss their works. They soon brought reproaches from proletarian writers for formalism, which “backfired” in 1946 in the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the journals Neva and Leningrad. Zoshchenko and Akhmatova were defamed and ostracized, dooming them to civil death, but Hoffmann also fell under the hand: he was called the "ancestor of salon decadence and mysticism." For the fate of Hoffmann in Soviet Russia, the ignorant judgment of the “Parteigenosse” Zhdanov had sad consequences: they stopped publishing and studying. A three-volume edition of his selected works was published only in 1962 by the Khudozhestvennaya Literatura publishing house in a hundred thousand copies and immediately became a rarity. Hoffmann remained under suspicion for a long time, and only in 2000 a 6-volume collection of his works was published.

Andrei Tarkovsky's film, which he intended to make, could be an excellent monument to the eccentric genius. Did not have time. Only his marvelous script remained - "Hoffmaniad".

In June 2016, the International Literary Festival-Competition "Russian Hoffmann" started in Kaliningrad, in which representatives of 13 countries participate. Within its framework, an exhibition is provided in Moscow at the Library of Foreign Literature. Rudomino “Meetings with Hoffmann. Russian Circle. In September, the full-length puppet film “Hoffmaniada. The Temptation of Young Anselm”, in which the plots of the fairy tales “The Golden Pot”, “Little Tsakhes”, “The Sandman” and the pages of the author’s biography are masterfully intertwined. This is the most grandiose project of Soyuzmultfilm, 100 dolls are involved, director Stanislav Sokolov filmed it for 15 years. The main artist of the picture is Mikhail Shemyakin. At the festival in Kaliningrad, 2 parts of the film were shown. We are in anticipation and anticipation of meeting with the revived Hoffmann.

Greta Ionkis

A major prose writer, Hoffmann opened a new page in the history of German romantic literature. His role is also great in the field of music as the initiator of the genre of romantic opera, and especially as a thinker who first expounded the musical and aesthetic provisions of romanticism. As a publicist and critic, Hoffmann created a new artistic form of music criticism, which was then developed by many major romantics (Weber, Berlioz and others). The pseudonym as a composer is Johann Chrysler.

Hoffmann's life, his creative path is a tragic story of an outstanding, multi-talented artist, misunderstood by his contemporaries.

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822) was born in Königsberg, the son of a Queen's Counsel. After the death of his father, Hoffmann, who was then only 4 years old, was brought up in his uncle's family. Already in childhood, Hoffmann's love for music and painting manifested itself.
THIS. Hoffmann - a lawyer who dreamed of music, and became famous as a writer

During his stay at the gymnasium, he made significant progress in playing the piano and in drawing. In 1792-1796, Hoffmann took a course of science at the Faculty of Law of the University of Königsberg. From the age of 18 he began to give music lessons. Hoffmann dreamed of musical creativity.

“Oh, if I could act according to the inclinations of my nature, I would certainly become a composer,” he wrote to one of his friends. “I am convinced that in this area I could be a great artist, and in the field of jurisprudence I will always remain a nonentity”

After graduating from university, Hoffmann holds minor judicial positions in the small town of Glogau. Wherever Hoffmann lived, he continued to study music and painting.

The most important event in Hoffmann's life was a visit to Berlin and Dresden in 1798. The artistic values ​​of the Dresden art gallery, as well as the various impressions of the concert and theatrical life of Berlin, made a great impression on him.
Hoffmann riding the cat Murre fights the Prussian bureaucracy

In 1802, for one of his evil caricatures of the higher authorities, Hoffmann was removed from his post in Posen and sent to Plock (a remote Prussian province), where he was essentially in exile. In Płock, dreaming of a trip to Italy, Hoffmann studied Italian, studied music, painting, caricature.

By this time (1800-1804) is the appearance of his first major musical works. Two piano sonatas (f-moll and F-dur), a quintet in c-moll for two violins, viola, cello and harp, a four-voice mass in d-moll (accompanied by an orchestra) and other works were written in Płock. In Plock, the first critical article was written on the use of the choir in modern drama (in connection with Schiller's The Messinian Bride, published in 1803 in one of the Berlin newspapers).

The beginning of a creative career

The provincial atmosphere of Plock oppressed Hoffmann. He complained to friends and sought to get out of the "vile little place." At the beginning of 1804, Hoffmann was assigned to Warsaw.

In the large cultural center of that time, Hoffmann's creative activity took on a more intense character. Music, painting, literature master it to an ever greater extent. The first musical and dramatic works of Hoffmann were written in Warsaw. This is a singspiel to the text by C. Brentano "The Merry Musicians", music to the drama by E. Werner "The Cross on the Baltic Sea", a one-act singspiel "Uninvited guests, or the Canon of Milan", an opera in three acts "Love and Jealousy" on the plot of P. Calderon , as well as the Es-dur symphony for large orchestra, two piano sonatas and many other works.

Heading the Warsaw Philharmonic Society, Hoffmann acted as a conductor in symphony concerts in 1804-1806 and lectured on music. At the same time, he carried out a picturesque painting of the premises of the Society.

In Warsaw, Hoffmann got acquainted with the works of German romantics, major writers and poets: Aug. Schlegel, Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), W. G. Wackenroder, L. Tieck, K. Brentano, who had a great influence on his aesthetic views.

Hoffmann and theater

Hoffmann's intensive activity was interrupted in 1806 by the invasion of Warsaw by Napoleon's troops, who destroyed the Prussian army and dissolved all Prussian institutions. Hoffman was left without a livelihood. In the summer of 1807, with the help of friends, he moved to Berlin and then to Bamberg, where he lived until 1813. In Berlin, Hoffmann found no use for his versatile abilities. From an advertisement in a newspaper, he learned about the position of bandmaster in the city theater of Bamberg, where he moved at the end of 1808. But not having worked there even for a year, Hoffmann left the theater, not wanting to put up with the routine and cater to the backward tastes of the public. As a composer, Hoffmann took a pseudonym for himself - Johann Chrysler

In search of a job, in 1809 he turned to the well-known music critic I. F. Rokhlits, the editor of the General Musical Gazette in Leipzig, with a proposal to write a number of reviews and short stories on musical themes. Rochlitz suggested to Hoffmann as a theme the story of a brilliant musician who had reached complete poverty. This is how the ingenious "Kreisleriana" arose - a series of essays about bandmaster Johannes Kreisler, musical novels "Cavalier Gluck", "Don Juan" and the first musical critical articles.

In 1810, when the composer's old friend Franz Holbein was at the head of the Bamberg theater, Hoffmann returned to the theater, but now as a composer, decorator and even architect. Under the influence of Hoffmann, the theater's repertoire included works by Calderon in translations of Aug. Schlegel (shortly before, first published in Germany).

Musical creativity of Hoffmann

In 1808-1813, many musical works were created:

• romantic opera in four acts The Drink of Immortality
• music for the drama "Julius Sabin" by Soden
• operas "Aurora", "Dirna"
• one-act ballet "Harlequin"
• piano trio E-dur
• string quartet, motets
• four-part choirs a cappella
• Miserere with orchestra accompaniment
• many works for voice and orchestra
• vocal ensembles (duets, quartet for soprano, two tenors and bass and others)
• in Bamberg, Hoffmann began work on his best work - the opera Ondine

When F. Holbein left the theater in 1812, Hoffmann's position worsened, and he was forced to look for a position again. Lack of livelihood forced Hoffmann to return to the legal service. In the autumn of 1814 he moved to Berlin, where from that time he held various positions in the Ministry of Justice. However, Hoffmann's soul still belonged to literature, music, painting ... He rotates in the literary circles of Berlin, meets with L. Tieck, C. Brentano, A. Chamisso, F. Fouquet, G. Heine.
The best work of Hoffmann was and remains the opera "Ondine"

At the same time, the fame of Hoffmann the musician is growing. In 1815, his music for Fouquet's solemn prologue was performed at the Royal Theater in Berlin. A year later, in August 1816, the premiere of Ondine took place in the same theater. The staging of the opera was remarkable for its unusual splendor and was warmly received by the public and the musicians.

Ondine was the last major musical work of the composer and at the same time a composition that opened a new era in the history of the romantic opera theater in Europe. The further creative path of Hoffmann is connected mainly with literary activity, with his most significant works:

• Devil's Elixir (novel)
• "Golden Pot" (fairy tale)
• "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (fairy tale)
• "Someone else's child" (fairy tale)
• "Princess Brambilla" (fairy tale)
• "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (fairy tale)
• Majorat (story)
• four volumes of stories "Serapion brothers" and others ...

Hoffmann's literary work culminated in the creation of the novel The Worldly Views of Murr the Cat, Together with Fragments of the Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, Accidentally Surviving in Waste Sheets (1819-1821).

Biography

Hoffmann was born into the family of the Prussian royal lawyer Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann (1736-1797), but when the boy was three years old, his parents separated, and he was brought up in the house of his maternal grandmother under the influence of his uncle, a lawyer, an intelligent and talented man, prone to fantasy and mysticism. Hoffmann showed early aptitude for music and drawing. But, not without the influence of his uncle, Hoffmann chose for himself the path of jurisprudence, from which he tried to break out all his subsequent life and earn money with the arts.

Hoffmann's hero tries to escape from the shackles of the world around him by means of irony, but, realizing the impotence of the romantic confrontation with real life, the writer himself laughs at his hero. Hoffmann's romantic irony changes its direction; unlike the Jenese, it never creates the illusion of absolute freedom. Hoffmann focuses close attention on the personality of the artist, believing that he is the most free from selfish motives and petty worries.

Artworks

• Collection "Fantasy in the manner of Callo" (German. Fantasiestucke in Callot's Manier), contains
  • Essay "Jacques Callot" (German Jaques Callot)
  • Novella "Cavalier Gluck" (German: Ritter Gluck)
  • "Chrysleriana" (I) (German Kreisleriana)
  • Novella "Don Juan" (German Don Juan)
  • "The news of the further fate of the Berganz dog" (German. Nachricht von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza)
  • "Magnetizer" (German Der Magnetiseur)
  • The story " The golden pot"(German Der goldene Topf)
  • "New Year's Eve Adventure" Die Abenteuer der Silvesternacht)
  • "Kreisleriana" (II) (German Kreisleriana)
• "Princess Blandina" (1814) (German: Prinzessin Blandina)
• The novel "Elixirs of Satan" (German. Die Elixiere des Teufels)
• Fairy tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (German Nußknacker und Mausekönig)
• The collection "Night Studies" (German: Nachtstücke), contains
  • "Sand Man" (German Der Sandmann)
  • "Vow" (German Das Gelübde)
  • "Ignaz Denner" (German Ignaz Denner)
  • "Church of the Jesuits" (German: Die Jesuiterkirche in G.)
  • "Majorat" (German Das Majorat)
  • "Empty House" (German: Das öde Haus)
  • "Sanctus" (German Das Sanctus)
  • "Stone Heart" (German: Das steinerne Herz)
• Novella "The Unusual Sufferings of the Theater Director" (German. Seltsame Leiden eines Theater-Directors)
• The story "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (German. Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober)
• "Player's Happiness" (German Spielerglück )
• The collection "Serapion Brothers" (German: Die Serapionsbrüder), contains
  • "Falun Mines" ((German Die Bergwerke zu Falun)
  • "Doge and Dogaresse" ((German Doge und Dogaresse)
  • "Master Martin-Bochar and his apprentices" (German. Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen)
  • Novella "Mademoiselle de Scudéry" (German: Das Fräulein von Scudéry)
• "Princess Brambilla" (1820) (German: Prinzessin Brambilla)
• The novel "Worldly views of the cat Murr" (German. Lebensansichten des Katers Murr)
• "Mistakes" (German: Die Irrungen)
• "Secrets" (German: Die Geheimnisse)
• "Twins" (German: Die Doppeltgänger)
• The novel "Lord of the Fleas" (German Meister Floh)
• Novel "Corner Window" (German Des Vetters Eckfenster)
• "Sinister guest" (German: Der unheimliche Gast)

• Opera "Ondine" ().

Bibliography

• Theodor Hoffman. Collected Works in eight volumes. - St. Petersburg: "Printing house of the Panteleev brothers", 1896 - 1899.
• E. T. A. Hoffman. Musical novels. - Moscow.: "World Literature", 1922.
• E. T. A. Hoffman. Collected works in seven volumes. - Moscow.: "Publishing Association "Nedra"", 1929.(under the general editorship of P.S. Kogan. With a portrait of the author. Translation from German, edited by Z.A. Vershinina)
• Hoffmann. Selected works in three volumes .. - Moscow .: "State Publishing House of Fiction", 1962
• THIS. Hoffmann. Kreislerian. Worldly views of the cat Murr. Diaries .. - Moscow .: "Science", 1972
• Hoffmann. Collected works in six volumes .. - Moscow .: "Fiction", 1991-2000.
• THIS. Hoffmann. Elixirs of Satan .. - Moscow .: "Republic", 1992. - ISBN 5-250-02103-4
• THIS. Hoffmann. Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober. - Moscow.: "Rainbow", 2002. - ISBN 5-05-005439-7

Ballets based on the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann

• Ballet by P. I. Tchaikovsky "The Nutcracker" (first production in 1892).
• Coppelia (Coppelia, or Beauty with blue eyes, fr. Coppélia) is a comic ballet by the French composer Leo Delibes. The libretto was written based on the short story by E. Hoffmann "The Sandman" by Charles Nuitter and the choreographer of the performance A. Saint-Leon).
• Ballet by S. M. Slonimsky "The Magic Nut" (first production in 2005).

Screen adaptations

• Nut Krakatuk - a film by Leonid Kvinikhidze
• The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (cartoon), 1999
• The Nutcracker and the Rat King (3D movie), 2010

In astronomy

The asteroid (640) Brambilla is named after the heroine of Hoffmann's "Princess Brambilla" (English) Russian opened in 1907.

• Hoffmann in his name Ernest Theodor Wilhelm changed the last movement to Amadeus after Mozart's favorite composer.
• Hoffman is one of the writers who influenced the work of E. A. Poe, G. F. Lovecraft, and M. M. Shemyakin. He influenced the work of the Russian rock musician, leader of the groups Agatha Christie and Gleb Samoiloff & the Matrixx Gleb Samoilov.

Notes

Literature

• Berkovsky N. Ya. Preface.//Hoffman E. T. A. Novels and stories. L., 1936.
• Berkovsky N. Ya. Romanticism in Germany. L., 1973.
• Botnikova A. B. E. T. A. Hoffman and Russian literature. Voronezh, 1977.
• Vetchinov K.M. The adventures of Hoffmann - police investigator, state adviser, composer, artist and writer. Pushchino, 2009.
• Karelsky A. V. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman // E. T. A. Hoffman. Sobr. Cit.: In 6 volumes. T. 1. M .: Hood. literature, 1991.
• Mirimsky IV Hoffman // History of German Literature. T. 3. M.: Nauka, 1966.
• Turaev S.V. Hoffman // History of World Literature. T. 6. M.: Nauka, 1989.
• The Russian circle of Hoffmann (compiled by N. I. Lopatina with the participation of D. V. Fomin, editor-in-chief Yu. G. Fridshtein). - M .: Center for the Book of VGBIL named after M. I. Rudomino, 2009-672 s: ill.
• The Artistic World of E. T. A. Hoffmann. M., 1982.
• E. T. A. Hoffman. Life and creation. Letters, statements, documents / Per. with him. Compiled K. Gyuntsel .. - M .: Rainbow, 1987. - 464 p.

Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus(1776-1822) - German writer, composer and artist of the romantic direction, who gained fame thanks to fairy tales that combine mysticism with reality and reflect the grotesque and tragic sides of human nature. The most famous fairy tales of Hoffmann:, and many other fairy tales for children.

Biography of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus(1776-1822) - - German writer, composer and artist of a romantic direction, who gained fame thanks to stories that combine mysticism with reality and reflect the grotesque and tragic sides of human nature.

One of the brightest talents of the 19th century, a romantic of the second stage, which influenced the writers of subsequent literary eras up to the present.

The future writer was born on January 24, 1776 in Königsberg in the family of a lawyer, studied law and worked in various institutions, but did not make a career: the world of officials and activities related to writing papers could not attract an intelligent, ironic and widely gifted person.

The beginning of Hoffmann's independent life coincided with the Napoleonic wars and the occupation of Germany. While working in Warsaw, he witnessed her capture by the French. Their own material disorder was superimposed on the tragedy of the entire state, which gave rise to a split and a tragic-ironic perception of the world.

Discord with his wife and hopeless love for his student, who was younger than him - a married man - by 20 years, increased the feeling of alienation in the world of philistines. Feeling for Julia Mark, that was the name of the girl he loved, formed the basis of the most exalted female images of his works.

Hoffmann's circle of acquaintances included the romantic writers Fouquet, Chamisso, Brentano, and the famous actor L. Devrient. Hoffmann owns several operas and ballets, the most significant of which are "Ondine", written on the plot of "Ondine" by Fouquet, and musical accompaniment to the grotesque "Merry Musicians" by Brentano.

The beginning of Hoffmann's literary activity falls on 1808-1813. - the period of his life in Bamberg, where he was a conductor at the local theater and gave music lessons. The first short story-tale "Cavalier Gluck" is dedicated to the personality of the composer who is especially revered by him, the name of the artist is included in the title of the first collection - "Fantasy in the manner of Callot" (1814-1815).

Among the most famous works of Hoffmann are the short story "The Golden Pot", the fairy tale "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober", the collections "Night Stories", "The Serapion Brothers", the novels "Everyday Views of the Cat Murr", "Devil's Elixir".

THIS. Hoffmann is a German writer who has created several collections of short stories, two operas, a ballet, and many smaller pieces of music. It was thanks to him that a symphony orchestra appeared in Warsaw. The words are carved on his tombstone: "He was an equally outstanding lawyer, poet, musician and painter."

Hoffmann was born in 1776. in the city of Koenigsberg in a wealthy family. His father was a lawyer for the royal court. A few years after the birth of the boy, the parents divorced. Ernst stayed with his mother.

Hoffmann spent his childhood and youth in his grandmother's house. He grew up closed, often left to his own devices. Of the adult members of the family, only his aunt took care of him.

The boy loved to draw, played music for a long time. At the age of twelve, he already played various musical instruments freely and even studied music theory. He received his basic education at a Lutheran school, and after graduating he entered the University of Koenigsberg, where he studied jurisprudence.

Having become a certified lawyer, he took the position of an assessor in the city of Poznan. However, he was soon fired due to a caricature he drew of his boss. The young man moves to Plock, where he also gets a job as an official. In his free time, he writes, draws and makes music, because he dreams of being a composer.

In 1802 married, and in 1804. was transferred to Warsaw. After Napoleon's troops occupied the city, all Prussian officials were taken away. Hoffman was left without a livelihood. In 1808 he managed to get a job as a bandmaster in the theater. Gives private lessons. He tries his hand as a conductor, but this debut cannot be called successful.

In 1809 his work "Cavalier Gluck" is published. In 1813 Hoffmann receives an inheritance, and in 1814. he accepts an offer from the Prussian Ministry of Justice and moves to live in Berlin. There he visits literary salons, completes previously begun works and conceives new ones, in which the real world is often intertwined with the fantastic world.

Soon popularity comes to him, but for the sake of earning Hoffman continues to go to the service. Gradually become a regular in wine cellars, and when he returns home he sits down at the table and writes all night long. The addiction to wine does not affect the performance of the functions of an official, and he is even transferred to a place with a large salary.

In 1019 he is ill. He is being treated in Silesia, but the disease is progressing. Hoffmann can no longer write himself. However, even while lying in bed, he continues to create: under his dictation, the short story "Corner Window", the story "Enemy", etc. are recorded.

In 1822 the great writer has died. Buried in Berlin.

Biography 2

Amadeus Hoffman is an excellent writer, composer and talented artist who has written many wonderful orchestral parts as well as a wide variety of paintings. The man is truly very versatile, with many different talents and interests, the results of which he happily shared with the world.

Amadeus was born, but at birth he was given the name Wilhelm, which he later changed, in Könisberg in 1776. However, in childhood, a misfortune happened to the boy - his parents decided to divorce, because they simply could not be together anymore, the boy was three years old at that time, and subsequently he was raised by his uncle. Since childhood, the boy was surrounded by love and care, because of which he grew up as a slightly boorish, selfish person, but no doubt talented in the field of painting and music. Combining these two branches of art, the young man achieved a fairly good reputation in the circles of art historians and other high figures. On the instructions of his uncle, the young man decided to start studying law at a local university, and later, having brilliantly passed the exam, he was offered a job in the city of Poznan, where his talent was received with cordiality. However, in this city, the young talent became addicted to carousing so early that, after several of his antics, they decided to send him to Polotsk, having previously scolded him and demoted him in office. There he meets his future wife, marries her, and begins to lead a more meaningful life.

However, due to the fact that there were no ways to earn money for the young talent, his family was in poverty. He worked as a conductor, and also wrote articles about music in magazines that were not very popular. But during his poverty, he also discovered a new direction in music, namely the famous romanticism, according to which music is an expression of the sensual emotionality of the human soul, which, experiencing certain experiences, creates such a beautiful thing as music. This, in its own way, also brought him some popularity, after which he was noticed, and in 1816 he received a place in Berlin and became a counselor of justice, which gave him a consistently high income. And having lived his life like this, he died in 1822 in the city of Berlin from old age.

Biography by dates and interesting facts. The most important.