Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg

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Dalberg in 1778 as a student in Göttingen

Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg (born May 17, 1760 in Mainz , † July 26, 1812 in Aschaffenburg ) was a German cathedral chapter , writer , pianist , music writer and composer .

Life

Origin and education

Johann Friedrich Hugo Freiherr von Dalberg, son of Franz Heinrich von Dalberg , came from a baronial noble family, formerly Ministeriale or Imperial Knight in the service of the Archbishops of Mainz , with seats mainly in and around Mannheim , Worms and Mainz; Johann Friedrich was one of eleven siblings, only five of whom reached adulthood; Like his older brother, the Archbishop and last Elector of Mainz, Grand Duke and Prince Primate Karl Theodor von Dalberg , he embarked on a spiritual career and, as was customary at the time, became domicellar in consultation with befriended noble families at the age of eight , i.e. H. Candidate for the office of cathedral capitular in the Archdiocese of Trier ; 22 years - without ordination and after studying in Erfurt (1772-1774) and Göttingen (Jura) without ever professional theology to have assigned - he then joined with the orders of subdeacon and deacon in 1784 in the cathedral chapter in Trier a ; Theology and ordination were not required for this high-level administrative office.

The thirty-year-old writer Sophie Becker (1754–1789) describes him as follows during her visit to the court of brother Karl-Theodor in Erfurt:

“His brother [Fritz] is a small, humpbacked person, but extremely amiable. Spirit and goodness have taken their place in his eyes, one forgets one's hump so completely that one could love him ... if he had not renounced women through his spiritual status. He is a great virtuoso on the piano and composes very beautifully. … Graf Stadion is also a clergyman and, like the Dalberge, a man full of skill and spirit. Meinz Herz, meanwhile, decided on the little humpback light. "

- Sophie Becker (1754–1789), on September 7, 1784 from Erfurt

In the education system of Kurtrier 1784–1789

In Kurtrier, Dalberg has been a member of the archaeological bureaucracy since 1785 for education in the field of school and university education. Among other things, he was "responsible for the training of young church musicians and also took appropriate exams", but mainly as head of the school commission - at his express request and only after some negotiations - the entire education system of Kurtrier from Trier via Koblenz to the Eifel and Westerwald areas ( Upper and Lower Erzstift ), with rural, urban and so-called " trivial schools " ( elementary schools ), the Episcopal Seminary and the Philosophical Faculty of Trier University , where he successfully focused on modernization and moderation Enlightenment, initially in the spirit of the last Elector Clemens Wenzeslaus of Saxony , took care of. The official seat was Trier.

According to the enlightened ideal of education of the time, teaching in general and high schools should be taught with forbearance, love and humor, but not without severity; The aim was to develop the mind as well as the heart towards morality, religion and morality, without neglecting the "sciences": German, mathematics, geography, history, Latin, rhetoric and ancient Greek. Dalberg's curriculum and school regulations aimed at the student's own activity and independence through insight and motivation (orientation and action skills ), mechanical memorization, on the other hand, should be avoided (except in the first grades). Dalberg successfully introduced German as the language of instruction and examination at the university (instead of Latin), and obstetrics and dissections were taught in medical training. The Piarist order initially entrusted with higher education was replaced in favor of secular teachers. Dalberg can therefore be rightly described as the “most committed enlightener of the archaeological bureaucracy” (Michael Trauth), his epoch was seen by the later as a golden time.

“It was the year 1786 that was to be characterized by a more real progress in school education; the university and the grammar schools in Trier and Coblenz had an epoch of beautiful prosperity for a while; for science took an important place in public life with the freedom to teach. We, the rest of our contemporaries, still vividly remember the lively literary life of that time. "

- Johann Hugo Wyttenbach (1767–1848), later teacher of Karl Marx

Resignation, withdrawal from public service, travel and scholarly activity

In connection with the unrest in the Netherlands , the suppression of the uprising by the Prussians and the outbreak of the French Revolution , Dalberg resigned from his position as head of the school commission in 1789 at the age of 29 because he did not approve of the conservative turn of his employer, the archbishop. His enthusiasm for the educational ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Caspar Lavater , his visit to the imprisoned writer and reformer Schubart (1782), trips to the Netherlands and revolutionary Paris (1783 and 1791) and with his nephew Emmerich Joseph von Dalberg in Switzerland (1790) testify to his politically liberal interests, which no longer seemed to fit into the times. Although his grammar school reform in particular proved to be successful, Dalberg withdrew from public activity and from now on practiced essentially only a “decades-long, learned privatization” (Embach).

“Dalberg turned from enlightener to romantic, from politician to poet and musician. This fits in with the fact that Dalberg cut back his activities as a Freemason and Illuminate - he was a lodge member in Worms and Triere - strongly. "

- Michael Embach : Between Worlds

Journey to Italy with Herder 1788–1789

Financially secured by his church mortgages , which he later owned in the diocese of Worms (revolt 1770, admission 1787) and in the diocese Speyer (revolt 1769, admission 1794) - there, however, without leaving any further traces of his activity - he undertook in 1788 -1789 together with Johann Gottfried Herder and Sophie von Seckendorf a trip to Italy . Herder's resentment resulting from the circumstances of the trip - the tour company split up in Italy, Herder traveled on in the company of the Dowager Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar - did not last, however, Dalberg and Herder stayed in until Herder's death in 1803 close, friendly contact.

Italy, England, Switzerland

Dalberg's second stay in Italy probably ended in 1793; In 1794 (or 1795) and 1797 (or 1798) he made two trips to England , where his cantata The Dying Christian to His Soul (based on an ode by Alexander Pope ) was performed in London .

Musician, musicologist and writer

Dalberg was already considered a piano virtuoso in Göttingen and Trier. “Physically misshapen, but a well-educated, spiritually minded man”, he distinguished himself both as a practicing pianist and as a versatile composer, but especially as a music writer. The baron , who called himself “Fritz von Dalberg”, composed mainly sonatas and piano-accompanied songs and set classical and romantic poems to music , but - despite his status - did not write church music . Although he was one of the most famous music dilettantes of his time and is even considered the first romantic in music today, his work was ineffective; Even his contemporaries noticed, with all due respect for his musical achievements, technical inadequacies in the execution, which indicated a lack of inventiveness and a lack of creative ability. His melodrama Eva's laments at the sight of the dying Messiah. A declamation with musical accompaniment. From Klopstok's Messiad, 8th song ( digitized version http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.de%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DtUBfAAAAcAAJ%26pg%3DPP5%26dq%3Ddalberg%2Bklagen%2Bsterbenden%26hl%3Dde%26sa%3DX%26hlved%3Dde%26sa%3DX%26ved 3D0ahUKEwik8tHq7q_cAhXFKFAKHSWlAWIQ6AEIMjAC% 23v% 3Donepage% 26q% 3Ddalberg% 2520klagen% 2520dying% 26f% 3Dfalse ~ GB% 3D ~ IA% 3D ~ MDZ% 3D% 0A ~ SZ ~ 3D% ~ 3D% 3D double-sided) is considered his "most interesting and also most dramatically skilful work"

As far as vocal music is concerned, today he is referred to as "one of the most talented Southwest German small masters of piano song".

His novel History of a Druze Family has also been published in English and French translations. In 1802, as a result of Herder's ideas about the songs of the peoples (" folk song "), he himself transferred the writing Musik der Inder (first published in 1784, expanded edition 1792) by the British William Jones with extensions and additions from English into German and thus brought it to German the German audience for the first time the basics of Indian music.

Dalberg's early writings have dealt with “fashion topics of the time” (Embach) such as the humanization of criminal law , morality, and social and moral philosophy since 1776 . Under the influence of Herder, he opposed Immanuel Kant's disparaging judgment of music, especially in his 1791 publication Vom Inventing und Bilden, against which he opposed his own, already early romantic music-aesthetic conception of the intrinsic value of the musical. As a practicing musician he experimented with glass rods (1799) and dealt with studies on the origin of harmony (1800), an area that probably also explains his interest in foreign, oriental music systems ("Music of the Indians", 1802), which he of course only got to know them in transmissions.

Freemason, Illuminate and member of learned societies

Like his second oldest brother, Wolfgang Heribert, and his son Emmerich Joseph, he was also a member of the Freemasons' Association ; his mother's box was the Johannes zur Brotherliche Liebe . He was also an Illuminate . In 1812 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

End of life

Dalberg, who described himself as “suffering” and “sickly” as early as 1798, moved to his brother, the Archbishop of Mainz , Imperial Chancellor and regent of the Principality of Aschaffenburg , Karl Theodor von Dalberg , after losing his benefices in the area on the left bank of the Rhine due to the secularization in 1802 . In Aschaffenburg he initially lived with his brother in Johannisburg Castle , but then, when he could no longer climb the stairs due to illness, moved into a one-storey apartment in Sattig's house outside the city gates. At the age of 52, Dalberg succumbed to an unspecified illness - probably heart failure with the associated dropsy - in the house that he and his sister Antonetta Franziska (1757-1818), a former canoness of the Cologne monastery of St. Maria im Capitol (entry 1777).

Character and appreciation

Dalberg's achievements in the field of music and literature went beyond mere amateurism (or hobby); As a member of a stormy transition period between the Enlightenment , the Ancien Régime , the Revolution and the Restoration , he withdrew - in accordance with his sociable , Eirenian nature , witnessed by many contemporaries - from political and practical life and concentrated on the practice, investigation and promotion of music and literature and education where he left something lasting.

Works (in selection)

A list of vocal and instrumental music as well as the writings can be found in the articles by Komma (1952) and Serwer (1980) and in Embach / Godwin, Dalberg, pp. 552-561

Music theory :

  • A sound artist's glimpse into the music of the spirits . Mannheim 1787 ( full text ).
  • About inventing and forming . Frankfurt 1791 ( full text in the Google book search).
  • Investigations into the origin of harmony and its gradual formation . Erfurt 1801 ( full text in the Google book search).
  • About the music of the Indians . ad Engl. of William Jones. Erfurt 1802 ( full text in the Google book search).

Others :

  • About righteousness . Erfurt 1776.
  • Ariston or on the effectiveness of the embarrassing penal laws: a dialogue . Keyser, Erfurt 1782, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10395985-5 .
  • A speech about legal order . Frankfurt am Main 1789 ( full text in the Google book search).
  • Gita-Govinda or the songs of Jayadeva, an ancient Indian poet . From Sanskrit into English, translated from this into German with explanations by F. H. von Dalberg. Verlag Beyer & Maring, Erfurt 1802 ( full text in the Google book search).
  • History of a Druze family . Frankfurt 1808 ( full text in the Google book search).
  • Sheik Mohammed Fani's Dabistan: or from the religion of the oldest Parsees . Aschaffenburg 1809 ( full text in the Google book search).
  • The aeolian harp. An allegorical dream . Beyer and Maring, Erfurt 1801 ( full text in the Google book search).

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Leopold von Eltester :  Dalberg, Friedrich Hugo Freiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 703.
  • Michael Embach : Dalberg's letters to contemporaries . In: Volker Gallé and Michael Embach (eds.): Fritz von Dalberg on the 200th anniversary of his death. About inventing and forming . Worms-Verlag, Worms 2012. ISBN 978-3-936118-87-2 , pp. 29-46.
  • Michael Embach:  Dalberg called treasurer of Worms, Johann Friedrich Hugo Nepomuk Eckenbert. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 899-908.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Michael Embach: Dalberg's "Story of a Druze Family" . In: Volker Gallé and Michael Embach (eds.): Fritz von Dalberg on the 200th anniversary of his death. About inventing and forming . Worms-Verlag, Worms 2012. ISBN 978-3-936118-87-2 , pp. 47-57.
  • Michael Embach: Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg (1760-1812) - a sketch of life and work . In: Volker Gallé . Werner Nell et al. a. (Ed.): Zwischenwelten. The Rhineland around 1800. Conference from 28.-30. October 2011 in Herrnsheim Castle / Worms . Worms, Worms-Verlag 2012, pp. 95–110.
  • Michael Embach and Joscelyn Godwin : Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg (1760–1812). Writer - musician - canon . Middle Rhine Society for Church History, Mainz 1998.
  • Michael Embach: Dalberg's musicological writings . In: Volker Gallé and Michael Embach (eds.): Fritz von Dalberg on the 200th anniversary of his death. About inventing and forming . Worms-Verlag, Worms 2012. ISBN 978-3-936118-87-2 , pp. 87-127.
  • Volker Gallé: Dalberg and the Indian culture . In: Volker Gallé and Michael Embach (eds.): Fritz von Dalberg on the 200th anniversary of his death. About inventing and forming . Worms-Verlag, Worms 2012. ISBN 978-3-936118-87-2 , pp. 59-85.
  • Karl Michael Komma :  Dalberg, Friedrich Hugo von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 488 f. ( Digitized version ). - Almost exclusively from a musicological point of view
  • Karl Michael Komma: Dalberg, Joann Friedrich Hugo . In: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): The music in past and present (MGG). General encyclopedia of music. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1949–1987. Vol. 2 (1952), Col. 1869-1871.
  • NN: Dalberg as a composer . In: Volker Gallé and Michael Embach (eds.): Fritz von Dalberg on the 200th anniversary of his death. About inventing and forming . Worms-Verlag, Worms 2012. ISBN 978-3-936118-87-2 , pp. 129-134.
  • Howard Serwer: Dalberg, Johann Friedrich Hugo . In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Vol. 5. Macmillan, London 1980, pp. 151-152.
  • Martin A. Völker : Space fantasies, narrative wholeness and identity. A reconstruction of the aesthetic from the work and activity of the Barons von Dalberg = Enlightenment and Modernism 5 = Dissertation at the Humboldt University in Berlin 2004. Wehrhahn, Hannover-Laatzen 2006. ISBN 3-86525-205-2
  • Peter Volk: "I think with Nathan". Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg as enlightener, freemason and illuminate . In: Kurt Andermann (Hrsg.): Ritteradel in the Old Kingdom. Die Kämmerer von Worms named by Dalberg = work of the Hessian Historical Commission NF Bd. 31. Hessische Historical Commission, Darmstadt 2009. ISBN 978-3-88443-054-5 , pp. 233–246.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The dates of birth - also in lexicon articles - are not infrequently transmitted incorrectly; JFHvD was born in the Alten Dalberger Hof in Mainz, not in Koblenz. Embach / Godwin, p. 45
  2. ↑ Embach / Godwin, p. 34
  3. ↑ On the cathedral chapters in general and the Trier cathedral chapter in particular see Wolfgang Schmid : How does one become a canon? In: Werner Rössel (Ed.): The Trier Cathedral Chapter in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period. Contributions to its history and function . Mainz: Society for Middle Rhine Church History 2018, p. 135 ff.
  4. ↑ Embach / Godwin, pp. 57-62
  5. ↑ Embach, in Zwischenwelten, p. 97
  6. ↑ A hundred years ago. Elise von der Reckes Travels through Germany 1784–1786 according to the diary of her companion Sophie Becker . Ed. U. a. by G. [eorg] Karo u. M. [Oritz] Geyer. Stuttgart: Spemann undated [1884]. (German Reference and House Library), p. 80; see also Embach, Zwischenwelten, p. 298
  7. ↑ Embach / Godwin, pp. 131–170, v. a. P. 168 ff.
  8. ↑ This and the following according to Embach, Zwischenwelten, p. 97 ff.
  9. ↑ Embach, Dalberg, p. 137
  10. ↑ The paragraph is based on Embach / Godwin, Dalberg, pp. 144–164; see also Michael Trauth: A meeting of science and enlightenment. The University of Trier in the 18th century . Trier: Spee 2000
  11. ↑ Embach, Zwischenwelten, p. 168
  12. ↑ Embach, Zwischenwelten, pp. 97 and 98
  13. ↑ Embach, Zwischenwelten, p. 102
  14. ↑ Both dates from Embach, in Zwischenwelten, p. 97
  15. ↑ " Herder was ugly circumvented by Dalberg; without being asked about it or having been prevented, a lady, a Frau von Seckendorf, the sister of H. von Kalb, found herself at the party who made the trip to Italy and with whom Dalberg may be in matters of the heart. Herder found astonishingly much improper in going around the world with a beautiful widow and a canon and in Rome he separated himself completely from society ... "; Schiller, letter to Körner v. November 14, 1788
  16. ↑ Embach / Godwin, Dalberg, p. 284
  17. ↑ Audio
  18. ↑ Embach, Zwischenwelten, p. 102; Embach / Godwin, Dalberg, p. 560. - The English edition was dedicated to "Mrs. Hastings", the wife of the Governor General of India, Warren Hastings , from Stuttgart ; the writer Sophie von La Roche , the author of the “ Story of Fräuleins von Sternheim ” (1771), cousin and former friend of Wieland , grandmother of Clemens von Brentano and Bettina von Arnim and a good friend of the Dalbergs (Embach / Godwin, Dalberg, p . 88 f., 132 ff.), Marian and Warren had visited Hastings in England in 1786 and learned to appreciate them; Marian Hastings' first husband, Baron Imhof, had married the sister of Frau von Stein , Amalie , after his divorce from her and lived with her for a while in Weimar.
  19. ↑ v. Eltester in ADB 4 (1876), p. 703; Dalberg had a back growth or a hump (Fritz Reuter: Die Dalberg in Worms and in Herrnsheim . In: Hans-Bernd Spies (ed.): Carl von Dalberg 1744-1817. Contributions to his biography . Aschaffenburg: Geschichts- und Kunstverein 1994 , Pp. 263–279, p. 276 note 46) and Embach / Godwin p. 53
  20. ↑ Embach / Godwin, Dalberg, p. 415 ff.
  21. ^ Comma in MGG (1952), Col. 1870
  22. ^ Serwer in New Grove (1980), p. 151
  23. ↑ technical shortcomings ; Serwer in New Grove (1980), p. 152
  24. ↑ Speyer: Bossler without a year [1784-1785?] (Piano reduction); the evaluative quote after comma, MGG (1952), Col. 1871
  25. ↑ Wagner, Dalberg 1993, quoted in according to Embach, Zwischenwelten p. 108
  26. ↑ The Rhine Palatinate of July 27, 2012
  27. ↑ Embach, Zeitenwende, p. 103
  28. ↑ Embach, Zwischenwelten, p. 103 ff.
  29. ↑ For the history of the origin of Jones' original text see Raymond Head: Corelli in Calcutta. Colonial music-making in India during the 17th and 18th centuries . In: Early Music 13 (1985), pp. 548-553 and Thomas Kohl: Joseph and Francis Fowke - Haafner's employer in Calcutta . In: Jacob Haafner , Journey to Bengal . Mainz: Gutenbergbuchhandlung 2004, pp. 231-257, v. aS 251 ff.
  30. ↑ Michael Embach and Joscelyn Godwin : Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg (1760-1812). Writer - musician - canon . Publishing house of the Middle Rhine Society for Church History, Mainz 1998, p. 227.
  31. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 64.
  32. ↑ "... my sister and I are both sickly". In: Heinrich Düntzer. Ferdinand Gottfried von Herder (Ed.): From and to Herder. Unprinted letters from Herder's estate . Vol. 3. Leipzig: Dyk 1862, letters to Herder from August 14, 1798 and April 1, 1799, pp. 267 and 270
  33. ↑ Embach / Godwin, Dalberg, p. 306; Embach, Zwischenwelten, p. 98
personal data
SURNAME Dalberg, Johann Friedrich Hugo von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pianist, music writer and composer
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1760
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1812
Place of death Aschaffenburg