Hostel of romance
The term Herberge der Romantik (also called Reichardts Garten or Giebichensteiner Dichterparadies ) comes from German literary history and stands for a private garden in Giebichenstein ( Halle (Saale) ) which, thanks to its prominent owner Johann Friedrich Reichardt, became a meeting place between 1791 and 1814 scientific and literary celebrities (including Brentano and von Arnim ). Even Goethe stayed several times and for a long time here at his friend when he in nearby Bad Lauchstädt a then completely new summer theater built and managed.
The title became generally accepted after the German studies scholar Hans Schulz first described Goethe and Halle Reichardt's garden as a “hospitable inn of the Romanticism at Giebichenstein” in his meticulous study published in 1918 , and renowned scientists followed him.
Nature of the garden
"Reichardts garden is the most beautiful composition of his life and his mind."
The garden is exceptional in terms of location and nature. As part of the Brunnstein estate , which was important in Giebichenstein and was around 5 hectares in size at the time (formerly belonging to the Neuwerk monastery ), the garden was ideally suited for the implementation of romantic ideals.
In Reichardt's intimate letters of November 10, 1809 you can read what made this garden so attractive for romantics: Wherever I come from, this lovely spot in the middle of the most fertile land always appears to me with a new charm. How the Saale flows [...] between meadows and bushy islands and high moss-covered rock walls, past the ruins of the old castle, known through the romantic story of Ludwig the Springer; how the river then pushes itself boldly through the beautifully formed rocky banks of eternal porphyry, past the quiet fishing village of Kröllwitz and its richly planted paper mill [...], roaring over the high weir [...]. Looking over all this from the height of our lovely garden, […] [is] on very bright days the Brocken in the deep blue sky [recognizable]. On the one hand the high old vineyard in its primeval mountain form, which our witty [Prof. med. Johann Christian] Reil has now so beautifully planted; on the other hand, the pleasant logging, dairy farms, sheep farms and vineyards on the fertile area; in the back the city of Halle with its many towers and salt pans [...] The whole country all around so richly and merryly built - it is not easy to see a manifold, richer view in any flat country.
Johann Friedrich Reichardt, the important composer and Royal Prussian Kapellmeister of King Friedrich II , discovered this property for himself in May 1791 and bought it shortly afterwards with the help of Princess Luise von Anhalt-Dessau for 9,300 Reichstaler. At that time, people were gripped by an irresistible lust for the country and garden life , writes Goethe in his daily and annual journals in 1797. All the unfortunate circumstances in the world, the paralyzing game of intrigues that Reichardt had to endure enough in Berlin - here in Giebichenstein, in direct contact with nature and its inexhaustible forces near the castle ruins and the Saale, he felt free and sublime from all of this .
The grounds of the garden are particularly attractive for planters like Goethe, but also Reichardt. There is a difference in height of 28.3 meters, measured between the lower northern corner of the Reichardtschen farmstead (Seebener Straße) and the uppermost point of the garden, where the “Oberschmelzer” (the Friedensstraße 1e house) is today. There are two slopes from the hill: one that descends steeply to the east as far as the creek that was then abundant in water , and another from which one could enjoy the much-mentioned view of the Saale and the porphyry rocks around it . The slope, which slopes much more gently to the north and as far as the Reichardts homestead, was always used as an ornamental and vegetable garden. For horticultural and practical purposes, steeply climbing stairs made of porphyry stone from the nearby Galgenberg volcano were built next to the eastern and western garden walls as a connection between the depth and the edge of the hill .
Many circumstances contributed to the fact that Reichardt ran such an immense expense in the years 1794–1814 to redesign the garden entirely in accordance with Rousseau's contemporary ideals that the piece of land became something that all his prominent, romantic guests were consistently para- dies designated; as a place that gave the feeling of nature a visible shape for a long time. In general, it can be said that Reichardt wanted to achieve on a small scale with his private garden what had recently been achieved with the Wörlitzer Park and the Weimar parks on a large scale: to subordinate a garden completely to the landscape around it, to design it artistically in such a way that it fits itself fits into it and reveals himself with it that the investor has understood the laws and God's blessings of nature. This is the merit of Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who, contrary to the models in Weimar and Wörlitz, kept his garden free of things such as artificial ruins, broken columns, friendship urns, bridges or temple gates.
He planted the slopes with native and foreign hardwoods and conifers, especially North American pine . Many types of flowering shrubs were distributed in graceful alternations. Magnificent fir trees stood in front of the garden house. Pine, spruce, notably the Weymouth pine . Near the house he planted lilac bushes with many fine roses , perennials and summer flowers. He created grottos above the edge of the hill and a large round stone table near the marble quarry . Tastefully selected stone benches were placed in suitable places all over the garden. Reichardt's orders to his garden guests meant that no animal was allowed to be shot in him; the hares nibbled on the herbs, the partridges brooded undisturbed, and innumerable nightingales nestled in the bushes and sang . A quiet, peaceful and uniquely idyllic calm prevailed here on the consecrated site.
Efforts by the city of Halle to sacrifice the facility in the 1960s and early 70s to expand the mountain zoo were given up again through the initiative of two professors from Martin Luther University, the literary scholar Thomas Höhle and the art historian Hans-Joachim Mrusek .
The Reichardtsche homestead
The Brunnsteingehöft belonging to the garden , which Johann Friedrich Reichardt moved into in October 1791, remained in its original form until a decision was made against the bourgeois homestead in 1902 in order to make way for the electric tram (the house jumped north to the middle of the today's Seebener Strasse). After the entire homestead was demolished, only written records and the ground floor plan remained. You entered through a large gate drive. To the right and left you saw large wooden wings on brick pillars. The main residential building, hardly darkened by the narrowness of today's Seebener Strasse, two-story, seven-windowed and covered with a high hipped tile roof. There was an arbor escape , i.e. H. old wooden corridors supported by posts led along the north-western side of the courtyard. In the courtyard stood a constantly flowing tubular fountain with a stone trough. There was also a brick pigeon pillar , under which pig pens were set up.
The other right-angled side wing facing the garden accommodated, in addition to other common rooms and the kitchen, a papered garden room with a window and three glass doors. From spring to autumn, it was possible to establish a direct connection between the living spaces and the friendly nature of the garden. In general, one enjoyed the pleasant view of bushes, trees and flowerbeds and of the picturesque background of mountains and valleys from there. The upper floor had a large, non-heatable dining room above the garden room on the first floor, next to it a spacious, papered room with three (!) Windows and a French fireplace.
The other buildings were used for agriculture: stables for pigs , sheep and horses and a threshing floor , each with a Banse aside. Grain was kept in it.
Music in the garden
Another uniqueness of this garden is that for its owner, Johann Friedrich Reichardt, garden life was inextricably linked with music in the open air and he saw in it an experience of how human voices fit artfully and humbly into those of musical instruments or the silence of nature can. Reichardt himself had a beautiful tenor voice - admired by Goethe - and his daughters were, according to Tieck, singing goddesses who inhabit the grove , above all his eldest and best-known daughter Louise Reichardt , who herself also composed songs successfully. He gave lessons to his coachman and servants so that they could accompany chants on the French horn . In addition, the garden owner loved to be heard playing the piano in his garden room, for which he wrote a number of very playable sonatas, fantasies and smaller pieces. His Ertmann sonatas for piano were also composed here in Giebichenstein, along with other great works.
Reichardt's son-in-law Henrich Steffens tells us: His daughters formed choirs together, which made a great impression in their simple way. [...] When the old, wistful, lyrical German chants, accompanied by the French horn, rang out in the quiet garden on warm and quiet summer evenings, the impression was ravishing. The daughters often sang choirs from Palestrina, Leonardo Leo, and especially a cor mundum crea . Similar to Joseph von Eichendorff in his memories of his youth: the Reichardtsche Garten on Giebichenstein with its witty daughters seemed completely mystical [...] to many. There, from mysterious boskets, often on mild summer nights, like from an unapproachable magic island, singing and guitar tones resounded. After Reichardt's death, Goethe also affectionately documents in his diaries and annual journals that the cheerful, sociable hours in Giebichenstein, during which he read his poems emotionally by Reichardt's seven daughters and heard them set to music for the first time by their father, made the strongest impression on him (Goethe's lyric poems 1794).
The climax of musical life in the garden was when Prince Ferdinand of Prussia came over from the nearby Wettin Castle . The story Das Adagio des Prince Louis Ferdinand by Margarete Reichardt-Bader describes quite truthfully what happened during these summer evenings: the festive excitement of Reichardt, the expectant excitement of the guests, the appearance of the prince, the master's piano playing, the nocturnal garden in which The sweet sounds of bright women's voices, carried by the wind, flutter with a smile ... How the guests then step out of the garden room onto the terrace and the full moon pours its dazzling light over the lawns covered by the glittering night dew, as the shrubs and bushes stand as if sprinkled with frost and only under the tall ones Trees impenetrable shadows black shadows lie. Otherwise there was nocturnal silence around. Then, all of a sudden, a deep, dark tone comes from the wooded ground below the mountain, according to the author. The French horn. A second begins a third higher, and a beautiful male voice (Prince Ferdinand) occurs:
In the field I creep quietly and wildly,
Listen with the ear of fire,
Your dear picture floats so brightly ,
your sweet picture before me.
It is for me, I only think of you, Than to look
into the moon;
A quiet peace comes upon me, I
don't know what happened to me.
It is particularly noteworthy, however, that Johann Friedrich Reichardt wrote his poem settings (Goethe and Schiller) in Giebichenstein by no means only for French horn, guitar or piano, but also for the harp , even recommending the extremely delicate sound of the instrument. 1798 with the publication of his songs of love and loneliness to sing the harp and the piano and his Six Canzonetti con accompagnement de pianoforte o arpa and 1805 with his Six Romances avec Accompagnement de Fortepiano ou Harpe . This plucked instrument, which was only playable in several keys to a limited extent before 1810, was favored around 1800 in Parisian salons , in London or Berlin houses, above all as an instrument for elegant ladies.
The hostel and Des Knaben Wunderhorn
The romantic hostel plays an important role in the creation of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn folk song collection . For Achim von Arnim , from 1798 to 1800 at the Friedrich Halle University law student, worked here during this year (and after) intensively collecting folk songs . Especially in Reichardt's garden - he already knew the family as a music lover from Berlin - his creativity had free rein to develop, Reichardt lived with his daughters and the garden nothing else than what was ideal for the whole national population at the time: house music in a folk-song tone with texts of traditional or high German poetry in good company. People like Arnim recognized that the value of the heritage of German poetry had long been lost among the general public and that most of it had already been forgotten. To counteract this, Arnim first opened up this plan to his friend Clemens Brentano in a letter from Switzerland: The simplest melodies by Schulz, Reichardt, Mozart and others are brought to the people through a newly invented note designation with the songs, gradually it acquires meaning and voice for higher ones , wonderful melodies. It is interesting that Reichardt did not pursue anything else with all his song collections and traditional Halloren chants (such as the song of the Halloren when they hold cold storage ) from the nearby Giebichenstein near Halle are passed down to us in the Knaben Wunderhorn through Arnim .
In March 1805 Achim von Arnim published the First Manifesto for Des Knaben Wunderhorn in his Berliner Musikalische Zeitung , to which Reichardt also contributed: In the 9th piece, C. Brentano's morning greetings appear with a musical supplement from Reichardt and his troubadour (collection of songs), the Reichardt had completed Easter 1805. It is full of excellent compositions by Arnimscher and Brentanoscher. In May 1805 Reichardt once again contributed a lot of old things and handed them over to Arnim during an eight-day stay with him in Giebichenstein. A few months later, in the summer of 1805, Des Knaben Wunderhorn was completed and published in Heidelberg .
It is important that the first volume of this folk song collection is dedicated to Goethe , another to Reichardt , and both Arnim and Brentano hoped that the garden lover and composer would after all agree to set the entire Knaben Wunderhorn to music. Reichardt showed such respect for this task that he reverently refused it all his life.
Well-known guests of the hostel
- Ludwig Tieck , from 1792, regular family member (married Amalie Alberti, Reichardt's sister-in-law in 1798)
- Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder , from summer 1792, sometimes for 20 days
- Johann Heinrich Voß , from 1794, together with Tieck and Wackenroder in the summer of 1799
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , 1802–1805, in spring and summer for 5 to 10 days, among others together with Prof. FA Wolf and Prof. AH Niemeyer
- Christiane Vulpius , in the summers from 1802 (always coming from Bad Lauchstädt)
- Clemens Brentano , from 1797, among others together with Achim von Arnim in 1807 after a 2-year separation and devastation by Napoleon's troops
- Achim von Arnim , from 1798, among other things for Christmas at the Reichardts 1805 (10 days)
- Jean Paul , from July 16, 1798 for 5 days, at the end of July 1798 again for 5–7 days
- Novalis , from 1799, first acquaintance with Ludwig Tieck and first ideas for Heinrich von Ofterdingen
- Wilhelm Grimm (Brothers Grimm) , from March 31, 1809, together with Bettina and Clemens Brentano from August 4, 1809, in late autumn 1809 for 7–8 weeks on Reichardt's 57th birthday
- Friedrich Schleiermacher , evangelical theologian, philosopher and educator
- Henrich Steffens , Norwegian philosopher, naturalist and poet (Reichardt's son-in-law)
- Karl Georg von Raumer , geologist, geographer and educator (Reichardt's son-in-law)
- Adam Oehlenschläger , Danish national romantic poet
- Varnhagen , the Westphalian family of the von Ense ministerial family
- Louis Ferdinand of Prussia , nephew of Frederick the Great, Prince of Prussia
literature
in alphabetical order
- Erich Neuss : "The Giebichensteiner poet's paradise". Johann Friedrich Reichardt and the hostel of romanticism. Issued by the Landesheimatbund Sachsen-Anhalt eV flies head, Halle (Saale) 2007, ISBN 978-3-930195-91-6 .
- Walter Salmen: Reichardts garden in Halle-Giebichenstein . In: Die Gartenkunst 6 (1/1994), pp. 105–109.
- Simone Trieder : Giebichenstein poet garden. Romantics in Halle (= Central German cultural history books. No. 9). Edited by Peter Gerlach and Moritz Götze. Hasen-Edition, Halle (Saale) 2006, ISBN 3-939468-08-8 .
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 13.2 " N , 11 ° 57 ′ 36.8" E