Mortality Statistics General 2003 No36

E.T.A. Hoffmann was a ‘man for all seasons’. In addition to composing music, he was an illustrator, writer, and attorney who attained a position on the Court of Appeals in Berlin. His primary legacy is in the area of German literature. He wrote many novels and stories concerned with supernatural elements and their impact on humans. Hoffmann’s most famous writings are the stories on which the French composer Jacques Offenbach based his opera "Tales of Hoffmann".
When I read a Hoffmann story, I think of the supernatural operas of Carl Maria von Weber, not Hoffmann’s most well known opera "Undine". The fact is that Hoffmann’s reputation as a composer is slight, and recordings of his works are infrequent. Even during his own lifetime, he had great trouble getting his music published.