Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann - Biography

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (January 24, 1776-June 25, 1822) was originally named Ernst Theodor Wilhem Hoffmann. Around 1813 in honor of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he changed his middle name from Wilhelm to Amadeus (although Hoffman would continue to use Wilhelm in official documents.) He wrote under the name E. T. A. Hoffman. He is renowned for his writing, music composition, and painting. Hoffman became a prominent figure in European Romanticism with his supernatural stories in which the dark and disturbing sides of human nature are explored.

The fantastical and lyrical nature of Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann’s literature lent itself to musical interpretation. Richard Wagner adapted selections from Die Serapionsbrüder for the composition of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Die Serapionsbrüder would also serve as the source text for scores by Jacques Offenbach and Paul Hindemith. Perhaps most famously, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky used a Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann story as the basis for The Nutcracker.

On January 24, 1776, Hoffmann was born in Konigsberg, Prussia. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was the youngest of three children. His parents separated when he was young. His mother moved young Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann into the care of her relatives. His mother, her sisters and her brother, Otto Wilhelm Doerffer, were instrumental in raising Hoffmann. Although Hoffmann was fond of his aunts, he would lampoon his uncle.

From 1781 until 1792, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was educated at the Burgschule where he was trained in the classics. Hoffmann also learned drawing and musical counterpoint during this time. His creativity flourished, and Hoffman augmented his education by reading Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Schiller, Sterne, and Jonathan Swift. In 1792, Ernst Theodor Amadaues Hoffmann attended lectures given by Immanuel Kant at the University of Konigsberg.

Hoffmann was a talented piano player and gave music lessons. These lessons led to one of the more contentious events in his life. He was infatuated with Dora Hatt, a married student who was ten years Hoffman’s senior. Her family objected to the instructor’s attentions. The family cajoled one of Hoffman’s relatives to get him a provincial posting in Prussian Silesia.

In 1798, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (who was the clerk of Johann Ludwig Doerfler, his uncle) moved with his uncle’s office from Glogau in Prussian Siliensia to Berlin. During Hoffmann’s residence, he continued with his examinations while pursuing his creative vision. He attempted to have his operetta Die Maske produced. Unfortunately by the time a theater responded, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann had left the city.

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann served as a Prussian law officer in the Polish territories from 1800 until 1806. In 1802, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann married Marianna Teckla Michalina Rorer (Trchinska.) Part of his employment responsibilities was to create surnames for the Jewish population. His entire attitude towards his entire work life was negative if his drawings of himself drowning in mud while being surrounded by peasants are indicative. In 1804, Hoffmann was transferred to a post in Warsaw. He became part of the literary community that included Rahel Levin, Friedrich de la Motte-Baron Fouque, and Adelbert von Chamisso. This period helped shaped Hoffman’s later writing.

When Napoleonic forces seized Warsaw, they dismantled the Prussian governmental machinery. Most of Ernst Amadeus Hoffmann’s colleagues fled, but a prolonged illness prevented the young Hoffmann family a real chance of escape. An attempt to leave the occupied zone failed since the French forces refused to issue Hoffmann a passport. Removed from his bureaucratic form of employment Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, his wife and young daughter eventually moved to Berlin. French-occupied Berlin was a difficult environment for Hoffman to eke out a living. He resorted to borrowing money. He often starved, and his daughter would die during this period.

In 1808. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann and his wife moved to Bamberg. Hoffmann was employed as theater manager. However, Hoffman was unable to improve the performances at the theater. Hoffmann was forced out of this job. The newspaper Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung hired Hoffman as a music critic. In writing about music, he garnered acclaim. Ludwig van Beethoven would admire Hoffmann’s criticism on his music.

In 1809, Hoffmann’s Ritter Gluck was a crucial story in his oeuvre. In this tale, Hoffmann presents a man who believes he meets the composer Christophe Willibald Gluck decades after his death. This story marked a moment when Hoffmann’s reputation amongst his contemporaries was secured. The unsettling character and the uncanny beauty of the music described in the piece highlight Hoffmann’s skill at the production of a style that left its mark on Romanticism.

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was hired by the Bamberg Theatre in 1810. He worked in many capacities including decorating, writing and performing the duties of a stagehand. He also resumed giving music lessons, but as before he was infatuated with one of his students. In this occurrence, the students family found a husband for the young lady with the hopes that this would prevent Hoffman from escalating his intentions.

In 1813, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann became the musical director for Joseph Seconda’s opera company, which was at the time in Dresden. Renewed war between Prussian and Napoleonic forces complicated the travels. When the Hoffmanns arrived in Dresden, they discovered that Seconda had already left for Leipzig. Hoffmann again tried to follow, but the bridges out of the city had been destroyed. Hoffmann spent his day observing the carnage of the fighting. In late May, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was finally able to render-vu with the opera company.

The armistice in June allowed the company to return to Dresden, but after the end of the armistice the Hoffmanns had to leave their home. Because of the hostilities, Horrman witnessed many deaths. Hoffmann’s observations on the Battle of Dresden were recored in Vision auf dem Schlachtfeld bei Dresden.

After a period of contention with Seconda, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann returned to his legal profession. The period after Napoleon’s defeat marked a turning point in Hoffmann’s bureaucratic career. Hoffmann was appointed to the court of appeals (1814) and he eventually became a councilor (1816.)

Hoffmann turned more intently to his musical interests. In 1811, he wrote and staged the ballet Arlequin. In 1816, Hoffmann composed Undine. an opera. During 1816, he also wrote Phantasiestücke in Callots Manier. His reputation was bolstered by this publication. To address the aesthetic his aesthetic project, Hoffman wrote “The Perfect Stage Manager.” In the passage below (translated by Francis J. Nock), Hoffmann explains the nature of art is that:

If perhaps you have not already noticed it yourselves, I will herewith reveal to you that the poets and musicians are in an extremely dangerous league against the audience. For their aim is nothing less than to drive the spectator out of the real world where he is so well off...when they have complelety separated him from everything that he previously knew and liked, to torment him with all possible emotions and passions extremely prejudicial to his health.

His creative career was also reaching a high mark. Publication sought Hoffmann’s contributions. At times his work in the latter period was spotty, many of Hoffmann’s most significant works also dated from this period. Tribulations, however, were soon to file. Alcoholism and syphilis led to a creeping paralysis which seems to have fully incapacitated him by 1821. His work from 1822 had to be dictated to his wife or an assistant. He was also caught up in a purge of liberal thinkers. He was never officially reprimanded, but his loyalties were questioned and his reputation tarnished. He finally died of the June of 1822.

The writings of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann include Die Elixiere des Teufels, and Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler, Nachtstücke, Die Serapionsbrüde, and Die Maske.