Wackenroder, Kleist, Hoffman - Contos Musicais

In this music-themed collection, Wackenroder, Kleist, and Hoffmann intersect in universes, styles, and shared sensibilities: from the biographical and fictional sketch of a tormented musician (The Strange Musical Life of Composer Joseph Berglinger, 1796) to an allegory about the magic attributed to music since the dawn of time (in the poetic A Wonderful Oriental Tale of a Naked Saint, 1799), and the metaphor of art’s power over barbarism in Saint Cecilia or the Power of Music (1810). 

Hoffmann brings this rich artistic dialogue to a close with Knight Gluck (1809), the fantastical story of an eccentric and charismatic composer in 1800s Berlin, and Baron B. (1819), a sharp satire on timeless, pretentious music lovers. These pages remind us that music has always fascinated literature—and will continue to intrigue posterity—whether as a pathway to the dreamlike and the intangible or, outside the bounds of reason, as a journey through alienation and madness.