Friedrich Schlichtegroll
Encyclopedia
Waltershausen
Waltershausen is a city in the district of Gotha, Thuringia, Germany.The town has a population of 11475 .-Sister cities: Bruay-sur-l'Escaut, France Korbach, Germany Wolbrom, Poland Hanau, Germany -External links:*...
– 4 December 1822 Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
) was a teacher, scholar and the first biographer of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
. His brief account of Mozart's life (6000 words) was published in a volume of twelve obituaries Schlichtegroll prepared and called Nekrolog auf das Jahr 1791 ("Necrology for the year 1791"). The book appeared in 1793, two years after Mozart's death.
Sources
Schlictegroll had never met Mozart. To obtain information about him, he consulted a friend of Mozart's in SalzburgSalzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, Albert von Mölk, who in turn queried Mozart's sister Maria Anna Mozart
Maria Anna Mozart
Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart , nicknamed "Nannerl", was a musician, the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and daughter of Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart.-Childhood:...
("Nannerl"). Nannerl's written reply to his queries survives. Nannerl also contacted Andre Schachtner, an old Mozart family friend from the time of Wolfgang's childhood, and he replied with a kindly letter filled with anecdotes and memories, which Nannerl duly forwarded; Schachtner's remarks also survived and can be read today.
Since none of these people was very close to Mozart after 1781 (the year he left Salzburg for Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
), Schlichtegroll's biography is weighted toward the earlier period (i.e. first 25 years) of Mozart's life.
Rival biographic traditions
Schlichtegroll's biography competed with another early work by Franz NiemetschekFranz Xaver Niemetschek
Franz Xaver Niemetschek was a Czech philosopher, teacher and music critic. He wrote the first full-length biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart which has remained an important source of information about the composer.-Life:Niemetschek came from a large, musical family...
, which relied on the testimony of Mozart's widow Constanze
Constanze Mozart
Constanze Mozart was the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-Early years:Constanze Weber was born in Zell im Wiesental. Her mother was Cäcilia Weber, née Stamm. Her father Fridolin Weber worked as a "double bass player, prompter and music copyist." Fridolin's half-brother was the father of composer...
. The Schlichtegroll biography is relatively harsh on the role Constanze played in Mozart's life, as might be expected given Nannerl's antipathy to Constanze; for details see Maria Anna Mozart
Maria Anna Mozart
Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart , nicknamed "Nannerl", was a musician, the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and daughter of Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart.-Childhood:...
. According to the Grove Dictionary of Music, "Constanze bought up and destroyed the entire edition of the Nekrolog (the publication containing Schlichtegroll's obituary), apparently disliking its portrayal of her."
Assessment
Some modern scholars take a dim view of Schlichtegroll's work. Eisen and Keefe vividly depict him as the first in a long and dubious tradition:- the tradition of depicting Mozart as a strange mixture of angel and beast, TaminoThe Magic FluteThe Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
and PapagenoThe Magic FluteThe Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
: sublime where his music was concerned, but pathetically inadequate in worldly matters.
Bruce Cooper Clarke, who has compiled an extensive web-posted commentary (link below) on Schlichtegroll's work, assesses him thus:
- The debt posterity owes to Friedrich Schlichtegroll is mixed. On the one hand, because he asked questions not long after Mozart had died and offered the prospect of publication, Mozart's sister and others who were acquainted with the composer were led to put something of their remembrances in writing, reminiscences that otherwise might never have been recorded. On the other hand, through his handling of these materials, Schlichtegroll gave a powerful start to the formation of an "eternal-child" myth that, despite its irrelevance and wrongheadedness, has intruded ever since on every effort of Mozart biography to see its subject whole.
External links
- Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (v. 31, p. 484 – 487; in German)
- Bruce Cooper Clarke, "The annotated Schlictegroll". Complete German text with extensive English annotations and commentary. http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=113&pt_sid=34a4e2c6448ffe9fe150a58bd26a6f65