Grillparzer, Franz (EN)

Grillparzer Franz, *15 January 1791 Vienna, †21 January 1872 Vienna, Austrian playwright, poet and essayist, who was closely involved in the musical life of his time and place. The son of a prominent lawyer and a musical mother, he received a thorough and wide-ranging education (philosophy, law, piano, music theory) and embarked on a career in the civil service, punctuated by numerous trips around Europe. At the same time, he pursued literature; between 1817 and 1838 he wrote his major works, which established his reputation as the founder of Austrian drama. The early death of his father and his mother’s suicide (1819), as well as his entanglement in an endless engagement with Kathy Fröhlich, and finally the troubles with censorship and theatrical failures that followed years of great success, deepened his innate tendency towards melancholy over time and fostered a sense of bitterness and alienation. In 1838, Grillparzer withdrew from public literary life; in 1856, as director of the court archives, he retired. 

Music held a special place in his life. From childhood, he had been fascinated by Mozart, particularly The Magic Flute (he wrote an adaptation of the work for private performance). His love of opera remained with him throughout his life; he wrote reviews and essays that demonstrated his keen theatrical sense and understanding of the role of music. He was deeply moved by his youthful encounter with Beethoven (1805); in 1823–24 and 1826 he held lengthy conversations with him, recorded in conversation notebooks; at Beethoven’s suggestion, he prepared a libretto on the theme of Melusine (never realised by the composer). He delivered a speech at the composer’s funeral (1827), wrote a number of poems about the composer and his music (on Egmont 1834, Appassionata 1838, Symphony No. 9 1844), and published a memoir (Meine Erinnerungen an Beethoven 1844–45). He was close to Schubert’s art; he belonged to the circle of his friends, the participants in the “Schubertiades”; after the composer’s death in 1830, he wrote an epitaph which was engraved on Schubert’s tombstone. The composer set three of Grillparzer’s poems to music: two dramatic monologues (Berthas Lied in der Nacht 1819, Mirjams Siegesgesang 1828) and a serenade (Ständchen: Zögernd, leise 1827). Grillparzer tried his hand at composition. Among his few surviving amateur works are a Rhapsody for piano and several songs in the style of the Berlin School to texts by, among others, Horace, Goethe, Heine (including Fischermädchen) as well as some of his own.

The core of Grillparzer’s literary output consists of his dramatic works, including several five-act tragedies: Ahnfrau (1817), Sappho (1818), König Ottokars Glück und Ende (1823), Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (1831), Libussa (1847), Jüdin von Toledo (1855), as well as the comedy Weh dem, der lügt (1838, Biada kłamcy, Polish translation by J. Kasprowicz, 1902), the trilogy Das goldene Vliess (1821) two opera libretto projects: Melusine (1823) and Der Traum ein Leben (1834). These are complemented by a couple of novellas, aesthetic studies, reviews and critical essays, memoirs, diaries, epigrams and aphorisms, as well as a body of poetic work that emerged, as it were, on the margins of his life (Gedichte, 2 vols., 1872); this includes reflective lyric poetry and a considerable number of occasional poems (including many related to music). Grillparzer’s work, stylistically classified as part of the Austrian Biedermeier movement, is expressed in terms of melancholy, a sense of dissonance, a fear of action and a tendency towards Quietism; a strong desire for experience is accompanied by a tendency to subdue passions, to maintain inner peace at the cost of resignation. Drawing initially on German classics (Goethe, Schiller), Viennese Baroque and popular theatre, and later on Spanish Baroque drama (Calderón, Lope de Vega), Grillparzer develops his own unique style, particularly in tragedy. According to drama theorists (J. Volkelt, J. Sprengler, H. Seidler and others), key elements in Grillparzer’s works include: a distinctively framed dramatic structure that combines an arched form with a developmental one, a shift of emphasis towards the dénouement, the use of tension created through the technique of anticipation, leitmotifs and silences (breaks) – and, above all, the function of mood (Stimmung), a fundamental category in Grillparzer’s tragedies. As the equivalent of a specific “complex of feelings,” mood gives these tragedies a significant “basic tone” (Grundton). In Grillparzer’s work, one can observe an enthusiastic attitude toward music as the “queen of the arts”; in many dramas, musical moments appear (Medea, Sappho, Der Traum ein Leben). Grillparzer is the author of the ode Die Musik and the novella Der arme Spielmann (1848), which has autobiographical features (the protagonist, having found no response, escapes into the world of music). Grillparzer expresses his understanding of music most fully in his aesthetic studies and diary notes: the fundamental condition for the existence of beauty in music is harmonious sound and formal perfection. Hence his preference for Mozart and the Italians, and also his negative evaluation of C. M. Weber, G. Meyerbeer, R. Wagner, and the extreme tendencies of Romanticism. Grillparzer (as early as 1819) opposed the blurring of boundaries between the arts, as well as the then widespread conception of G. Lessing (a unified aesthetics of the arts). He may be regarded as an anticipator of Hanslick’s thesis on the autonomy of music.

It is puzzling that Grillparzer’s specific plots and texts held so little appeal for composers (and when they did, it was usually for third-rate ones). Apart from Mendelssohn (the concert overture Die schöne Melusine 1833), the theme of Melusine was taken up by C. Kreutzer (an opera based on Grillparzer’s libretto, premiered in Berlin in 1833); the second of the operatic themes was realised by J.G. Mraczek (1909) and W. Braunfels (Der Traum ein Leben 1934–7). A musical drama based on Sappho was written by H. Kaun (1917). Stage music based on Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen was composed by E. Frank (1885) and A. Nezeritis (1947–64), and for Jüdin von Toledo by T. Bretón (1900) and others. Songs, apart from Schubert (and Fanny Hensel, Mendelssohn’s sister), were written mainly by participants in the “Schubertiades”: F. Lachner and L. Sonnleithner. Grillparzer’s significant role in the history of 19th-century music is linked to his aesthetic views on the autonomy of the arts and to the poetics of tragedy, which were both inspired by and resonated with music.

Literature: E. Hanslick Grillparzer und die Musik, in: Musikalische Stationen, Berlin 1880; J. Volkelt Franz Grillparzer als Dichter des Tragischen, Nördlingen 1888; E. von Komorzynski Grillparzer und Wagner, “Musik” 1902; M. Steuer Die Musik in Grillparzers Tagebüchern, “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik” 1903; F. Strich Franz Grillparzer Aesthetik, Berlin 1905; F. Dubitzky Hebbels und Grillparzers Dramen als Opern, “Der Merker” 1917 No. 1; R. Lach Grillparzers Novelle “Der arme Spielmann” und die Musikwissenschaft, in Festschrisft for J. Schlosser, Vienna 1927; A. Orel Grillparzer und Beethoven. Die Grundlinien ihrer geistigen Beziehungen, “Euphorion” XXVIII, 1927; A. Orel Grillparzer und Schubert and R. Backmann Musik, Rhythmus und Komposition in Grillparzers Gedichten, “Jahrbuch der Grillparzer-Gesellschaft” XXIX, 1930; K. Vancsa Leitmotiv bei Grillparzer, “Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen” CLXII, 1933; K. Vancsa Grillparzer-Bibliographie 1905–1937, Vienna 1937; A. Orel Grillparzer und Beethoven, Vienna 1941; J. Sprengler Grillparzer — der Tragiker der Schuld, Stuttgart 1947; J. Brockt Grillparzer and Music, “Music and Letters” XXVIII 1947; A. Gmür Dramatische und theatralische Stilelemente in Grillparzers Dramen, Winterthur 1957; D.W. MacArdle Beethoven und Grillparzer, “Music and Letters” XL No. 1 (1959), pp. 44–55; J. Keiser Grillparzers dramatischer Stil, Munich 1961; H. Seidler Die Kunst der Rahmung in Grillparzers Dramen, in: Grillparzers-Forum, Forchtenstein 1965; U. Fülleborn Das dramaturgische Geschehen im Werk Franz Grillparzers, Munich 1966; W. Donner Der naive Typus als dramatische Figur bei Schiller, Kleist, Grillparzer und Wagner, Cologne 1967.

W.E. Yates Grillparzer, Cambridge 1972; K. Schmidt Franz Grillparzer und die Musik, “Musikerziehung” 26 (1972), pp. 3–6, 34–58; G. Steinringer Grillparzers Beziehung zur Musik, doctoral thesis from the University of Vienna, 1977; O.E. Deutsch Schubert und Grillparzer, “Österreichische Musikzeitschrift” 32 (1977), pp. 497–505; D. Monson The Classic-Romantic Dichotomy: Franz Grillparzer and Beethoven, “International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music” 13 (1982), pp. 161–75; W. Nehring Grillparzer und Hofmannsthal: Geistige Begegnung und ideologische Gemeinschaft, “Modern Austrian Literature“ XVI No. 1 (1983) pp. 1–16; C.-H. Mahling “Das Übrige so unbedeutend als die Komposition …” Gedanken und Beobachtungen Franz Grillparzers zur Musik und zum Musikleben seiner Zeit’, De musica et cantu: Studien zur Geschichte der Kirchenmusik und der Oper: Helmut Hucke zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. P. Cahn and A.-K. Heimer, Hildesheim 1993, pp. 543–78.

Th. Horst Unendlichkeit und Grenze. Zu Grillparzers Musikästhetik, in: Franz Grillparzer, ed. H. Bachmaier, 1991, pp. 343–358; H. Gamper Die Künstlerfiguren bei Grillparzer und Thomas Bernhard, in: StichwortGrillparzer, ed. H. Haider-Pregler, Vienna/Weimar 1994, pp. 107–121; P. Wimmer Grillparzer und die Musik, in: Für all, was Menschen je erfahren, ein Bild, ein Wort und auch ein Ziel. Beiträge zu Grillparzers Werk, ed. J. P. Strelka, Bern et al. 1995, pp. 281–291.

Brascombe Grillparzer Franz, Grove Music Online https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.11783; C. Albert Grillparzer Franz, MGG Online https://www.mgg-online.com/articles/mgg05651/1.0/mgg05651?q=grillparzer

Höyng For Heaven’s Sake, I Will Have You Walk into the Dark: Grillparzer’s Containment of Beethoven and the Ambivalence of Their “Melusina” Project, in: Goethe Yearbook, vol. 17, 2010, pp. 275–302; M.M. Crosby Franz Schubert’s Use of Harmony to Express the Texts in His Musical Settings of Franz Grillparzer’s Poetry, doctoral thesis at the University of Arizona, 2020.

Jahrbuch der Grillparzer-Gesellschaft, Vienna, initial series vol.1 (1890) – vol.34 (1924), second edition titled Neue Folge vol. 1 (1941) – vol. 4 (1944), third series vol. 1 (1953) – vol. 30 (2024); Heinrich Heine; Franz Grillparzer; Ludwig van Beethoven, «The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries» series, vol. 6, ed. K. Francke (a collection of biographical and critical essays, translated into English), New York 1913–14, reprint  2018.