|
We crossed Hildesheimer's book on
Mozart the other day. I'd like to give you a more precise idea what we are
talking about:
By and large Hildersheimers topic is
the absurdity of human condition in an almost surrealistic array, often
satirically . His angle is deeply humanist. His imperative feel for the
"Pointe", as well as his imaginative narrative ductus reflect old-testament
education and may have to do with his being Jewish. If memory serves well
one of his two biographies, Masante, was fictionally, the other, Tynset, after a
real person. "Mozart" was written from the 50ies until 1977. In the liner notes
to the german edition you read (translated):
"Hildesheimer's Mozart is not the
book of a musicologist, it is no biography, in whatever sense, it is the book of
an author and artist who is to some extent closer to the artistc creative
process and who, psychoanalytically trained, tries to track down the creative
processes, but doesn't fail in the sense that he applies is own soul as the
benchmark for his hero".
To give you a glimpse of his approach I
tried to translate a key passage of the preface:
"...Last but not least does the
mental and psychic constitution of an author become manifest in the
fictions behind the protagonists. But the degree of his objectivity is not
criterium of its quality; who isn't aware that frequently especially
the neurosis adds that monomane, often monumental
subjectivity, which defines the unique value of a work. In the
biography however this degree must be the decisive criterium. Because the reader
wants the transmission, not the transmitter. But even here he will constantly be
informed about the object from the subjective angle of the reporter, albeit
he is free to accept or deny this latter...
...therefore the task was to
extinguish existing images, but not to mediate between reader and hero. The
objective of this essay, contrarily, is to enlarge the distance between the both
sides. Distance, not only understood as the gap between the ages, which
makes the true understanding of all of those persons and souls in the aera
of the late absolutism a speculation, but also as that unreachable distance
between the inner world of Mozart and our unsufficient concept of its nature and
dimensions..."
Below you find the entry for the
english traduction by Marion Faber of 1983 in the Library of Congress. Actually
the English version seems to be out of print - at least at Amazon - which
is a shame, since, trust me, the book is high literature. Anyway, some good
libraries may have survived the compassionate globalisation, and you might be
able to find it at these loci amoeni.
Jost
Mozart / Wolfgang Hildesheimer ; translated from the German by Marion Faber. LC Control Number: 83005747 Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.) Brief Description: Hildesheimer, Wolfgang, 1916- Mozart / Wolfgang Hildesheimer ; translated from the German by Marion Faber. 1st Vintage Books ed. Mozart. English New York : Vintage Books, 1983. 408 p., [20] p. of plates : ill. ; 21 cm. |