Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel
Encyclopedia
Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel (28 June 1736 – 1 May 1809) was a French-German writer and translator, whose texts were put to music by Ludwig van Beethoven
, Joseph Haydn
and Franz Schubert
. He is sometimes also known as Amédée or Théophile Conrad Pfeffel, which is the French translation of Gottlieb ("Godlove").
. His father, Johann Konrad Pfeffel, was the mayor of Colmar and a legal consultant of the French king, but died when Gottlieb was only two years old. He was raised by his brother Christian Friedrich Pfeffel, who was ten years older. He went in 1751 to the University of Halle
to study Law, with the intention of becoming a diplomat. There, he was a student of the philosopher Christian Wolff
. In 1752, he translated Johann Joachim Spalding
's Gedanken über den Werth der Gefühle in dem Christenthum in French. In 1754, he went to Dresden for treatment of an eye problem; there, he met the poet Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
. His eye condition deteriorated, and in 1758, after an operation, he became completely blind and had to abandon his studies.
In February of 1759, he married Margaretha Cleophe Divoux, a merchant's daughter from Strasbourg
. They had thirteen children together, of which 7 died before adulthood. He started to establish himself as a writer and translator. In 1762, he translated Magnus Gottfried Lichtwer
's Fabeln in French. He also worked on a translation into German of Claude Fleury
's Histoire ecclésiastique. He opened a military academy for aristrocratic Protestants in 1773, since these boys were not allowed at the military academy of Paris. He joined the Helvetic Society
in 1776, and in 1782 became a citizen of the city of Biel (Bienne) in Switzerland, and became a honorary member of the city council in 1783. The Prussian Academy of Arts
made him a honorary member in 1788.
After the French Revolution, he lost the military academy and his fortune, and found jobs with the educational board of Colmar, with the publisher Tubingen-Cotta
, and as a translator, until Napoleon I
granted him an annual pension in 1806. He wrote many articles for the magazine Flora. In 1808 he became a honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
. He died the next year.
His poem Der freie Mann was put to music by Ludwig van Beethoven (catalogue number WoO 117) in 1794 or 1795. Franz Schubert made a lied
of his text Der Vatermörder (D
10), and Leopold Kozeluch
put music to his cantata
for the blind Austrian singer Maria Theresia von Paradis. In 1773, his Philemon und Baucis: Ein Schauspiel in Versen von einem Aufzuge, a play in verse in one act, was turned into a Singspiel
for a marionette
theater by Joseph Haydn
with the new title Philemon und Baucis oder Jupiters Reise auf die Erde (Philemon and Baucis or Jupiter's Travels to the Earth). It was changed into a regular opera in 1776.
Pfeffel was a friend or acquaintance of many well-known persons of his period, including Voltaire
, Vittorio Alfieri
and the Swiss poet Johann Kaspar Lavater
, which whom he corresponded for many years.
A statue of Pfeffel by André Friedrich was placed in the Unterlinden Museum in 1859, and a copy of that statue was placed on the Grand Rue in Colmar in 1927.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
and Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
. He is sometimes also known as Amédée or Théophile Conrad Pfeffel, which is the French translation of Gottlieb ("Godlove").
Biography
Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel was born in ColmarColmar
Colmar is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.It is the capital of the department. Colmar is also the seat of the highest jurisdiction in Alsace, the appellate court....
. His father, Johann Konrad Pfeffel, was the mayor of Colmar and a legal consultant of the French king, but died when Gottlieb was only two years old. He was raised by his brother Christian Friedrich Pfeffel, who was ten years older. He went in 1751 to the University of Halle
University of Halle-Wittenberg
The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg , also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg within Saxony-Anhalt, Germany...
to study Law, with the intention of becoming a diplomat. There, he was a student of the philosopher Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff (philosopher)
Christian Wolff was a German philosopher.He was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant...
. In 1752, he translated Johann Joachim Spalding
Johann Joachim Spalding
Johann Joachim Spalding was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher of Scottish ancestry who was born in Tribsees, Swedish Pomerania...
's Gedanken über den Werth der Gefühle in dem Christenthum in French. In 1754, he went to Dresden for treatment of an eye problem; there, he met the poet Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was a German poet, one of the forerunners of the golden age of German literature that was ushered in by Lessing.-Biography:...
. His eye condition deteriorated, and in 1758, after an operation, he became completely blind and had to abandon his studies.
In February of 1759, he married Margaretha Cleophe Divoux, a merchant's daughter from Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
. They had thirteen children together, of which 7 died before adulthood. He started to establish himself as a writer and translator. In 1762, he translated Magnus Gottfried Lichtwer
Magnus Gottfried Lichtwer
Magnus Gottfried Lichtwer was a German fabulist.-Biography:His father of the same name was a jurist. The younger Lichtwer studied law at Leipzig and Wittenberg. His chief work is to be found in the Vier Bücher Aesopischer Fabeln...
's Fabeln in French. He also worked on a translation into German of Claude Fleury
Claude Fleury
Claude Fleury , was a French ecclesiastical historian.Destined for the bar, he was educated at the aristocratic College of Clermont . In 1658 he was nominated an advocate to the parlement of Paris, and for nine years followed the legal profession...
's Histoire ecclésiastique. He opened a military academy for aristrocratic Protestants in 1773, since these boys were not allowed at the military academy of Paris. He joined the Helvetic Society
Helvetic Society
The Helvetische Gesellschaft / Société Helvétique, or Helvetic Society as it is known in English, was a patriotic society and the first Swiss reform society. It was founded by Swiss philosopher Isaak Iselin, poet Solomon Gessner and some 20 others on 15 May 1762, and was dissolved with the...
in 1776, and in 1782 became a citizen of the city of Biel (Bienne) in Switzerland, and became a honorary member of the city council in 1783. The Prussian Academy of Arts
Prussian Academy of Arts
The Prussian Academy of Arts was an art school set up in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and later king in Prussia. It had a decisive influence on art and its development in the German-speaking world throughout its...
made him a honorary member in 1788.
After the French Revolution, he lost the military academy and his fortune, and found jobs with the educational board of Colmar, with the publisher Tubingen-Cotta
Johann Friedrich Cotta
Johann Friedrich, Freiherr Cotta von Cottendorf was a German publisher, industrial pioneer and politician.- Ancestors :Cotta is the name of a family of German publishers, intimately...
, and as a translator, until Napoleon I
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
granted him an annual pension in 1806. He wrote many articles for the magazine Flora. In 1808 he became a honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledge within their subject...
. He died the next year.
His poem Der freie Mann was put to music by Ludwig van Beethoven (catalogue number WoO 117) in 1794 or 1795. Franz Schubert made a lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
of his text Der Vatermörder (D
Otto Erich Deutsch
Otto Erich Deutsch was an Austrian musicologist. He is known for compiling the first comprehensive catalogue of the works of Franz Schubert, first published in 1951 in English, new edition in 1978 in German...
10), and Leopold Kozeluch
Leopold Kozeluch
Leopold Kozeluch was a Czech composer and teacher of classical music. He was born in the town of Velvary, in Bohemia .-Life:...
put music to his cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
for the blind Austrian singer Maria Theresia von Paradis. In 1773, his Philemon und Baucis: Ein Schauspiel in Versen von einem Aufzuge, a play in verse in one act, was turned into a Singspiel
Singspiel
A Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...
for a marionette
Marionette
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...
theater by Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
with the new title Philemon und Baucis oder Jupiters Reise auf die Erde (Philemon and Baucis or Jupiter's Travels to the Earth). It was changed into a regular opera in 1776.
Pfeffel was a friend or acquaintance of many well-known persons of his period, including Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, Vittorio Alfieri
Vittorio Alfieri
Count Vittorio Alfieri was an Italian dramatist, considered the "founder of Italian tragedy."-Early life:Alfieri was born at Asti in Piedmont....
and the Swiss poet Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar Lavater was a Swiss poet and physiognomist.-Early life:Lavater was born at Zürich, and educated at the Gymnasium there, where J. J. Bodmer and J. J...
, which whom he corresponded for many years.
A statue of Pfeffel by André Friedrich was placed in the Unterlinden Museum in 1859, and a copy of that statue was placed on the Grand Rue in Colmar in 1927.
Further reading
- Théophile-Conrad Pfeffel de Colmar; souvenirs biographiques, by Lina Bernard, Delafontaine & Rouge, 1866
- Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel's theatralische Belustigungen. Ein Beitrag zur geschichte des französischen Dramas in Deutschland, by Karl Worzel, E. Schmidt, 1911
- Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des Elsass, by Edgar Guhde, Keller, 1964
- Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel : Satiriker und Philanthrop, 1736-1809: Catalogue of the exhibition at the Badische Landesbibliothek in KarlsruheKarlsruheThe City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
in 1986 - Pfeffel, l'Européen: esprit français et culture allemande en Alsace au XVIIIe siècle, by Gabriel Braeuner, Nuée Bleue, 1994
- Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel (1736-1809) : Signaturen der Spätaufklärung am Oberrhein, by Achim Aurnhammer and Wilhelm Kühlmann, Rombach, 2010
External links
- http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mediatype%3A(texts)%20-contributor%3Agutenberg%20AND%20(subject%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20Konrad%2C%201736-1809%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20G%2E%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%2C%201736-1809%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%2C%201736-1809%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20Konrad%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20G%2E%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Gottlieb%20Konrad%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Gottlieb%20K%2E%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22G%2E%20K%2E%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20Konrad%2C%201736-1809%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20Konrad%2C%20Sir%2C%201736-1809%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20G%2E%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%2C%201736-1809%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%2C%201736-1809%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20Konrad%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20G%2E%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Gottlieb%20Konrad%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Gottlieb%20K%2E%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22G%2E%20K%2E%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Gottlieb%20Konrad%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Gottlieb%20K%2E%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20title%3A%22G%2E%20K%2E%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Gottlieb%20Konrad%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Gottlieb%20K%2E%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20description%3A%22G%2E%20K%2E%20Pfeffel%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20Konrad%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20G%2E%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Pfeffel%2C%20Gottlieb%20K%2E%20%28Gottlieb%20Konrad%29%22)Works by or about Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel] at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
and Google Books (scanned books original editions color illustrated)