Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

11
That's here a sort of chronic of specific developments, which one perhaps should know in the question:

1771 (or 1770 ?): Goethe, 21-22 years old, unknown author, meets Herder (26 years, already a little bit famous) in Strassburg. Herder came from Riga (far away), Goethe from Frankfurt. Herder had been short before in Darmstadt, and there was a girl.
Herder had a bad eye. Herder (who already had met a lot of other persons of the big scene of literature) and Goethe had a lot of opportunity to talk, cause Herder had this bad eye. The talking is considered as the begin of "Sturm und Drang". After it Herder got a position in Bückeburg, but remembered the girl of Darmstadt. Goethe wrote his own story.
1773: Herder has gotten a position at Bückeburg, inside a small state and territory called Schaumburg-Lippe. He writes an essay, which gets much attention, about Ossian, Finn McCool and Oscar in the Celtic mythology, which recently had become known by James MacPherson (1761).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fionn_mac_Cumhaill
Herder takes the position, that one has enough of all this Roman and Greek mythology, and that one should finally also care for the Northern myths. This position later develops to a big trend and movement, in which the brothers Grimm (just as example) gathered their fairy tales, which became so famous in Hollywood, and to Wagner and his Nibelungen and to the Faust of Goethe.
1775: Goethe has written "Werther's Leiden", which immediately became a very big success, even well known outside of Germany. He get's a well honored position in Weimar, and he calls for Herder, who also shall come to Weimar. And Herder comes. and many others come. So there was a literary cycle in Weimar, which became famous,
and so it happened, that Liebeskind (author of the early Zauberflöte) became home teacher for the children of the Herder family, who, born after the marriage of Herder and his girl Caroline Flachsland 1473, were in the right age to be amused through fairy tales.
Liebeskind published together with Wieland, his later father-in-law ... and Wieland was already in Weimar (since 1772), before Goethe and Herder came, and he got already the commission to educate the young duke in Weimar.

Wieland, 16 years older than Goethe and active writer already since 1750, had published a translation of Shakespeare works, at which he worked 4 long years (1762-1766), and the number of the used plays in this work was 22.

As far I know, Shakespeares works didn't get so much interest in England, and Shakespeare's later fame developed more through the acceptance in Germany than in England. .... :-) ... but, maybe, that this is only a German opinion. There is or there was the idea, that the ideas of Shakespeare fit better with the German spirit than with the English. But, as already said, this might be a German imagination ... :-)

Here's a list of Shakespeare translations to German ...
1604 Anon. (Wandertruppe): Von Romeo undth Julitha, aufgef. Nördlingen 1604 (Creizenach, S. XLI)
1611 Anon. (Wandertruppe): Teutsche Komedia der Jud von Venedig, auss dem engelländischen (Creizenach, S.XL) (Merchant of Venice)
1620 Frederick Menius: Englische Comoedien 2. Theil , "Eine sehr klägliche Tragoedia von Tito Andronico, und der hoffertigen Käyserin, darinnen denckwürdige actiones zu befinden" (Titus Andronicus)
1624 2nd edition of Frederick Menius' Englische Comoedien
1626 Anon. (Wandertruppe): Tragoedia von Romeo und Juliette, (aufgeführt in Dresden, 2. Juni, 29. Sept.) (Cr. XLI)
Anon. (Wandertruppe): Tragoedia von Julio Cesare (aufgeführt in Dresden, 8. Juni 1626)
Anon. (Wandertruppe): Tragoedia von Lear, König in Engelandt (aufgeführt in Dresden, 26. Sept.)
1627 Anon. (Wandertruppe): Tragikomödie von Julio Caesare (aufgeführt in Torgau 1627)
1631 Anon. (Wandertruppe): Julius Caesar (Dresden, 1631)
1646 Anon. (Wandertruppe): Tragoedie von Romeo und Julia (aufgeführt in Dresden, 15. Okt. 1646)
1651 Anon. (Wandertruppe): vom julio Caesare, dem ersten erwählten römischen Kaiser (aufgeführt in Prag)
1656 Johann Reinhard Laidig (?): Aran und Titus, Oder Tragödia von Raach und Gegen-Raach (Titus Andronicus)
1658 Andreas Gryphius: Absurda Comedia oder Herr Peter Squenz
1660 Anon. (Wandertruppe): die Tragoedia von Cajo julio Caesare (aufgeführt in Güstrow)
Anon. (Wandertruppe): vom Römischen Kayser Julio Caeesare, wie er auf dem Rathhause zu Rom erstochen wirt (aufgeführt in Lüneburg)
1661 Anon. (Wandertruppe): Tragicomoedia vom Mohren zu Venedig (aufgeführt in Dresden, 1661)
Hieronymus Thomae, zweite. deutsche Bearbeitung von Vos' Titus Andronicus (vgl. Laidig, 1656)
1665 Salomon Adler, Schuhmacher in Augsburg, hat u. a. "Comedie vom König Lier auss Engellandt" im Repertoire.
1666 Anon. (Wandertruppe): von dem Könnich Liar auss Engelandt, ist eine materien worin die ungehorsamkeit der Kinder gegen Ihre Elder wirt gestraffet, die Gehorsamkeit aber belohnet (aufgeführt in Lueneburg)
Drey, Puppenspieler Drama Nr. 6: Von Tito Andronicuo, welches eine schöne Romanische Begebenheit, mit schöner Aussbildung
1676 Anon. (Wandertruppe): König Lear aus Engellandt " (Dresden, 22. Juli 1676)
1677 Anon.: Tugend- und Liebesstreit (Twelfth Night)
1693 Christian Weise (1642-1708), Kömödie von der bösen Catherina (Taming of the Shrew)
1699 Tragoedia genannt Raache gegen Raache. Oder der streitbare Römer Titus Andronicus... (aufgeführt in Linz, vgl. Creiz. S. 23)
1710 Pretz, Tragoedia: Der bestrafte Brudermord oder: Prinz Hamlet aus Dännemark
1741Caspar Wilhelm von Borck. (Anon.): Versuch einer gebundenen Übersetzung des Trauer-Spiels von dem Tode des Julius Caesar
1758 Simon Grynaeus (Anon.): Romeo und Juliet in Neue Probstücke der englischen Schaubühne.
1766 Christoph Martin Wieland (1762 - 66): 22 Dramen

http://pages.unibas.ch/shine/translatorsgerman.htm

There is much of 17th century and not much of 18th century. And nearly everything, which had happened before, had the character of "one-play-translation, not more.

it followed works, which were based on Wieland's earlier works, but which are then called "complete editions:
1777 Johann Joachim Eschenburg (1775 - 77; 1782) erste vollständige deutsche Ausgabe (mit Wielands Übersetzungen)
1780 Gabriel Eckert (1778 - 80), Gesamtausgabe, Eschenburg revidiert

Somewhere I saw the number 36 and nowadays the number 38 for the complete Shakespeare plays. Wieland had 22. Possibly cause of Tarock influence, the game had then very new, but very high popularity.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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Wieland in 1779 writes in the periodical "Deutscher Merkur" a longer article in defense of card playing against a Christian moralization, which attacks card playing in the common and well known manner. The article ...
http://books.google.de/books?id=Nh5JAAA ... ck&f=false
... takes about 26 pages, and the game Tarock is mentioned as an acceptable and pleasant game.

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*********

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Wieland knows Mozart from a meeting in Mannheim.

Image

http://books.google.de/books?id=2Is32NH ... edir_esc=y
Emanuel Schikaneder:
Der Mann für Mozart (Google eBook)
Eva Gesine Baur
C.H.Beck, May 31, 2012 - 464 pages

**************************************************************************

Karl Ludwig von Knebel to his sister Henriette in the year 1787 ...

Image

Image

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http://books.google.de/books?id=v79PAAA ... ck&f=false

Knebel, the duchess, a female called "die Göchhausen" and Wieland had played Tarock in a long winter night with snow in late November. Knebels fears for the moral of Wieland, who has found a lot of fun in Tarock playing. Generally Tarock playing (and other games ?) has found much interest in these days in Weimar and Knebel doesn't like that.

*******************

Image

http://books.google.de/books?id=ngQhAQA ... edir_esc=y
Snippet view

Wieland had a faible for card-playing, L'Hombre, Tarock and Whist, which he played with great enthusiasm ... so also in 1796.

Image

http://books.google.de/books?id=4hBcAAA ... edir_esc=y

Again Wieland was observed, who with much joy and fun had his pleasure at the Tarock table.

******************

A description of Oberon (a poem of Wieland) which (as I understand it) played a role for the Oberon opera presentation in 1789, the first of the three fairy tale presentations in Vienna (1789 - 1791). A first version existed 1780, the final version appeared in 1796.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_%28poem%29

******************

Image

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http://books.google.de/books?id=pgmEInk ... er&f=false
W. A. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
Peter Branscombe
Cambridge University Press, May 31, 1991 - 264 pages
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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Tarock players

Image

Mother of Culture in Weimar

Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (/ regent in Saxe-Weimar (1758 - 1775)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Amali ... %C3%BCttel

Her husband, died young
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Augu ... r-Eisenach

Her eldest son
Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1757 - 1828)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... itzend.jpg
He loved drinking, but had a lot inspired ideas. He participated seldom at the Tarock playing evenings. In 1775 he (18 years old) became acquainted with Goethe in Frankfurt after a journey to Paris, and he immediately engaged him as a minister.

Younger brother and son, died early
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_ ... r-Eisenach

Image

... educated by poet Knebel (played Tarock, but found it not very educative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Ludwig_von_Knebel
Knebel, 5 years older than Goethe, arrived 1774 in Weimar and during the travel to Paris and back he introduced Goethe to Karl August with the known consequences.He lost his job in Weimar, when the second son died.

Image


... well, Wieland loved Tarock, and had been 2 years earlier in Weimar than Knebel (and he was 10 years older). He loved Tarock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_Martin_Wieland
From 1752-1760 he lived in Switzerland, and this might be the answer to the riddle, why he was so obsessed with Tarock. Possibly also the answer, why Wieland attempted the translation of 22 Shakespeare works in 1762-1766, in the multi-language Switzerland he might have well learned to speak also English.

German Wikipedia has details:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_Martin_Wieland
Studium, Schweiz (1750–1759)

Im Herbst 1750 hatte Wieland an der Universität Tübingen ein Jurastudium begonnen, das er jedoch bald zugunsten der Literatur und eigener poetischer Produktion vernachlässigte. Ein Heldengedicht Hermann in fünf Gesängen sandte er an Johann Jakob Bodmer – den Grand old man der Zürcher Literatur. Dies führte zu einem sehr persönlichen Briefwechsel. Bald gab er das ungeliebte Studium ganz auf und widmete sich seiner Bildung und der Literatur.

Seine übrigen Erstlingsdichtungen kennzeichneten ihn als leidenschaftlichen Klopstockianer und strebten auf eine spezifisch christliche Dichtung hin. Im Sommer 1752 folgte er einer Einladung Bodmers nach Zürich. Der folgende Aufenthalt in der Schweiz sollte acht Jahre währen. Auf das herzlichste empfangen, wohnte er eine Weile bei Bodmer als dessen Schüler und wirkte mit an der neuen Herausgabe der 1741 erschienenen „Züricherischen Streitschriften“ (gegen Johann Christoph Gottsched gerichtet). In anregendem Verkehr mit Johann Jakob Breitinger, Hans Caspar Hirzel, Salomon Gessner, Johann Heinrich Füssli, David Heß u. a. schrieb Wieland in Zürich um jene Zeit die Briefe von Verstorbenen an hinterlassene Freunde (Zürich 1753).

Die plötzliche Nachricht, dass seine Verlobte Sophie einen Ministerialbeamten – Georg Michael Franck von La Roche – geheiratet hatte, sowie ein längerer Aufenthalt in dem pietistisch gestimmten Haus der Familie Grebel in Zürich hielten ihn noch eine Weile bei der frommen Richtung. In seinen Hymnen (Zürich 1754) und den Empfindungen eines Christen (Zürich 1755) sprach er zum letzten Mal die Sprache, die er seit Kloster Berge geredet hatte, und wandte sich besonders deutlich gegen jede erotische Poesie. Neben Friedrich Nicolai (der schon damals Wielands Muse mit einer jungen Schönen verglich, welche die Betschwester spielen will und sich ehestens in eine Kokette verwandeln könne) durchschaute auch Lessing die Hohlheit der seraphischen Schwärmerei Wielands.

Bald jedoch vollzog sich in Wieland, besonders unter dem Einfluss der Schriften von Lukian, Horaz, Cervantes, Shaftesbury, d'Alembert, Voltaire, eine vollständige Umkehr. 1754 trennte er sich von Bodmer und machte sich selbständig. Gleichzeitig wandelte er sich zum klassischen Vertreter der Aufklärung. Schon das Trauerspiel Lady Johanna Gray (Zürich 1758) – es war dies das erste deutsche Drama in Blankversen – konnte Lessing mit der Bemerkung begrüßen, Wieland habe „die ätherischen Sphären verlassen und wandle wieder unter Menschen“. In demselben Jahr entstand das epische Fragment Cyrus (Zürich 1759), zu dem ihn Friedrich II. von Preußen angeregt hatte. Inzwischen hatte er in Bern eine Hauslehrerstelle angetreten. Dort trat der Dichter in sehr nahe Beziehungen zu der Freundin Jean-Jacques Rousseaus, Julie Bondeli. Pläne, eine Zeitschrift herauszugeben, musste er aus finanziellen Gründen bald aufgeben.
He took an English theme with "Lady Johanna Gray" (= Jane Grey, the English 9-days-Queen in 1553) in Zürich, 1758. That's likely the begin of the Shakespeare interest. Before he had a religious anti-erotic phase, cause a German lover had married somebody else ... he got some mockery for his attempt. Nicolai and Lessing had letter exchange with him, and both appear in earliest Tarock documents between 1755-1760 as interested in the game.
Ah, here ...

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... he did fall in love with Julia Bondeli
Julie Bondeli (1 January 1732 in Bern – 8 August 1778 in Neuchâtel), was a Swiss salonist and letter writer.

Bondeli belonged to a patrician family in Bern and became known for her great learning. She never married, as it was said, because smallpocs had damaged her skin. From 1752, she hosted a scientific salon in Bern which became a center of the city's cultural life. she arranged dance and theatre and supported the foundation of the first public theatre in Bern. She had a relationship with Christoph Martin Wieland from 1759, and corresponded with Rousseau from 1762.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Bondeli

German Wikipedia knows, that both were promise to each other, but suddenly Wieland disappeared from Bern. Well, she never married.

Big success as a writer arrived with "Agathon" in 1761 (published 1766-67 ?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathon
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_des_Agathon

Agathon gets wise after some disillusions.

Image


... and here the "Göchhausen"
She was small and had a hunch and not much chances to find a man. But she became the first of the court ladies and the necessary 4th player in a round of Tarock.
Luise Ernestine Christiane Juliane von Göchhausen; * 13. Februar 1752 in Eisenach; † 7. September 1807 in Weimar
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luise_von_G%C3%B6chhausen
She was very useful for Goethe, cause she could write very quick.

... not so lucky had been ...
Landgravine Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt (1757–1830)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landgravin ... %931830%29
... wife of Karl August.
Last edited by Huck on 13 Oct 2012, 09:55, edited 2 times in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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When I looked at the links that listed the plays Wieland translated, I could only find 16. But this was only for translations for which there were links. Do you have a better list? (And irrelevantly Jane Grey wasn't a wife of Henry VIII; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Jane_Grey.)

Also, it occurred to me that another source that might be examined for influence on Mozart et al is the Krata Repoa (or Crata Repoa), published in German either in 1770 or 1782 (I see different reports, none very well documented, one even 1785, http://www.rosae-crucis.net/crata%20repoa.pdf), possibly Berlin but since it is Masonic and pseudo-Egyptian, I don't see why it wouldn't have gotten to von Borne in Vienna in time for his 1784 essay, and from him to others. I could use a few good links here, Huck!

I think it was true early on, i.e. during the Puritan phase in England, that Shakespeare was put on in Germany more than England or elsewhere. The Puritans didn't like him (for one thing, he made fun of them in his comedies). After that, certainly by the 18th century but probably before, he was quite popular, I think. Also elsewhere, such as France--but again, not at first, due to the restrictions that the French Academy imposed in the 17th century. And as I recall it was especially Hamlet that was popular in Germany. Well, it's been said, in Hamlet the ghost is Catholic, while Hamlet, the student at Wittenburg, is Protestant.

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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mikeh wrote:When I looked at the links that listed the plays Wieland translated, I could only find 16. But this was only for translations for which there were links. Do you have a better list? (And irrelevantly Jane Grey wasn't a wife of Henry VIII; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Jane_Grey.)

Also, it occurred to me that another source that might be examined for influence on Mozart et al is the Krata Repoa (or Crata Repoa), published in German either in 1770 or 1782 (I see different reports, none very well documented, one even 1785, http://www.rosae-crucis.net/crata%20repoa.pdf), possibly Berlin but since it is Masonic and pseudo-Egyptian, I don't see why it wouldn't have gotten to von Borne in Vienna in time for his 1784 essay, and from him to others. I could use a few good links here, Huck!

I think it was true early on, i.e. during the Puritan phase in England, that Shakespeare was put on in Germany more than England or elsewhere. The Puritans didn't like him (for one thing, he made fun of them in his comedies). After that, certainly by the 18th century but probably before, he was quite popular, I think. Also elsewhere, such as France--but again, not at first, due to the restrictions that the French Academy imposed in the 17th century. And as I recall it was especially Hamlet that was popular in Germany. Well, it's been said, in Hamlet the ghost is Catholic, while Hamlet, the student at Wittenburg, is Protestant.
Thanks for Jane Grey, I corrected it.

https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm ... 795&num=10
Here's a publication list from google for Crata Repoa with an online edition of 1785. The text is a little bit boring ... :-).
Here is somebody very engaged, also 1785 ...
http://books.google.de/books?id=B-RAAAA ... 20&f=false
... but he notes Crata Repoa only once, and it's obscure, if he is pro or contra. But whatever he is, he is very engaged ...:-) I actually don't get, who this is: "Joseph, Graf von Palentin".

In 1788 the text is very open and available ...
http://books.google.de/books?id=6IE5AAA ... oa&f=false

I'm not so interested, for the moment I've some other program.
Herder was early initiated to freemasonry early in the 1760s. The "duchess" in Weimar is from a reigning Braunschweig family, so somehow near to those, which clearly engaged in freemasonry.

I don't have a list, which works of Shakespeare Wieland translated. I saw a note, that initially he intended to translate them all. Perhaps he just stranded and it became "too much". 4 years and 22 plays makes 5.5 plays in one year, so one in two months, and he worked parallel also at other texts. That's a long distance run. Perhaps soon he realized (when his English improved), that his beginnings were not perfect.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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In English you have to be a "premium subscriber" to read the Crata Repoa. So I read it at the library today. Yes, very boring, nothing but trite, bad commonplaces. There are a few points of contact with the Magic Flute, but none that the latter couldn't have gotten more reputably elsewhere: e.g. the killing of the snake and not talking to women. Since in the Magic Flute women kill the snake, while the hero faints dead away, and not only does the hero talk to a woman (after being instructed to by the Speaker) but allows himself to be led by one in the trials, perhaps Mozart et al meant to be mocking the Crata Rapoa.

I see that before the Magic Flute, Shikaneder did three or four other adaptations (one using little more than the title) of Wieland fairy tales, including an Oberon, which gets its title from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. There is a significant Shakespeare component in The Magic Flute, too. I am not sure what the significance of "22" in Shakespeare would be. Some see tarot in Shakespeare. Maybe Wieland did. That's sort of why I was interested in the titles.

I looked at a very interesting book today at the library called The Zauberflote an alchemical allegory (http://www.amazon.com/The-Magic-Flute-Z ... 9004130993). It mentions that he and his father visited the newly excavated Roman-era temple of Isis at Pompeii when they were engaged at Naples. It wasn't a half hour train ride from Naples then, either. Another big influence--greater than von Born's--was von Thurn, a name that occurs frequently in Mozart's sister's Salzburg diary; he emphasized the spiritual side of the Isis cult in his writings.

I also read the libretto for Stein der Weisen, English translation. It has two acts of 10 musical numbers each, with the numbering always starting with the first one after the overture. For that reason, the case for tarot is less clear than for the Magic Flute. It could equally be an allusion to the Rosarium Philosophorum's 20 standard images. As far as scenes, Act 1 has 21 scenes, Act 2, 29 scenes. It is filled with alchemical allusions. The only thing is, the alchemical metaphors seem more closely related to modern mineralogy than to the traditional alchemy I'm familiar with, of the 15th-17th centuries. (On the alchemical content, this is just me talking, not the interpreters. And I have to read up on 18th century alchemy. Apparently, most lodges in Vienna had alchemical labs attached. Von Born was a mineralogist, famous for a technique he perfected for extracting gold and silver; and Giesecke, whom I suspect wrote much of Stein if not Flute, became one.) I also find many of the tarot trumps in its characters and situations--not all, and not in sequence, the way they are in the Magic Flute, and the correspondences are not as clear.

One correspondence that I really enjoyed was what seems to be Stein's equivalent of the Fool card. It is two characters, one a foolish man and the other his equally foolish wife. At one point the man sprouts horns, reminiscent of the Marseille Fool's headpiece, or the Swiss tarot Fool's gesture with his fingers, back when two fingers up meant "cuckold."
Image

Then the wife gets her voice changed to a cat's meow. So she is the rather aggressive animal behind the Marseille Fool. Mozart is said to have written the duet between the two right after the transformation, when all she can do is mew like a cat. In Flute, Papageno has a part like that, after his mouth gets padlocked.

For others (spoilers here, but it's a silly plot): a Magician deceased before the action starts; a future Emperor and Empress (like Tamino and Pamina), a Pope (or good magician) figure, two pairs of lovers, the good Magician in his flying chariot, an old man who leads the faithful--or follows them, sometimes--, a reversal midway (as usual, the good magician abducts the heroine, so the hero can prove himself getting her back), three virtues (steadfastness, patience, and wisdom here), a dead heroine (whom the hero accidentally shoots), a devilish magician, a storm on water that drowns the whole chorus, the Sun as good and the dark as bad, resurrection all around, and a happy ending. It's said that they could do a major scene change in three seconds flat, thanks to backstage machinery

I hadn't appreciated the alchemical side of the Magic Flute. That's the main subject of the "alchemical drama" book. As far as I'm concerned, a good alchemical contribution helps to support my relatively long-held view that alchemy and tarot were always very interrelated. It is hard to actually give evidence for the relationship, escept circumstantially and in the pretty clear case of the Sola-Busca. But maybe Mozart is helping here.

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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mikeh wrote: I also read the libretto for Stein der Weisen, English translation. It has two acts of 10 musical numbers each, with the numbering always starting with the first one after the overture. For that reason, the case for tarot is less clear than for the Magic Flute. It could equally be an allusion to the Rosarium Philosophorum's 20 standard images. As far as scenes, Act 1 has 21 scenes, Act 2 10 scenes. It is filled with alchemical allusions. The only thing is, the alchemical metaphors seem more closely related to modern mineralogy than to the traditional alchemy I'm familiar with, of the 15th-17th centuries. (On the alchemical content, this is just me talking, not the interpreters. And I have to read up on 18th century alchemy. Apparently, most lodges in Vienna had alchemical labs attached. Von Born was a mineralogist, famous for a technique he perfected for extracting gold and silver; and Giesecke, whom I suspect wrote much of Stein if not Flute, became one.) I also find many of the tarot trumps in its characters and situations--not all, and not in sequence, the way they are in the Magic Flute, and the correspondences are not as clear.
hm ... I wrote:
Huck wrote:It's said, that "Der Stein der Weisen oder die Zauberinsel" (1790) was a forerunner of "die Zauberflöte" and shows parallels. It has two acts, and the first has 20 scenes and a final, and the second 22 scenes and a final. Mozart contributed a few parts.
German description with some humor:
http://www.tamino-klassikforum.at/index ... eadid=1716
You write 21 scenes and 10 scenes ... but you speak of the Rosarium Philsophorum.
This has 20 pictures and a title page according description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosary_of_the_Philosophers
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/mo ... l2009.html
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/virtual_m ... _room.html

You write: "Act 1 has 21 scenes, Act 2 10 scenes." So there's some difference ... Typo? Different versions?
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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You were too quick for me, and so early in the morning, too! After posting, I went back and looked at the libretto again. There are 21 scenes in Act One and 29 scenes in Act Two. I corrected it right away. Then for musical numbers, there are ten numbered ones in each act. (Added later: That's what corresponds to the Rosarium (http://www.levity.com/alchemy/rosarium.html), which is two sets of ten each. However the tarot sequence could also be seen as two sets, of 11 each, which corresponds if we count the overtures.)

Added later: regarding scenes, we still have a discrepancy. There were different versions. The edition I read was the Hamburg of 1795, which was not the original. I don't know how many scenes each act had in the original; in general the edition I read ignored the libretto as much as possible in favor of the music. The editor (David J. Buch) seemed to have the attitude that it was more than enough just to give a translation.

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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mikeh wrote:You were too quick for me, and so early in the morning, too! After posting, I went back and looked at the libretto again. There are 21 scenes in Act One and 29 scenes in Act Two. I corrected it right away. Then for musical numbers, there are ten numbered ones in each act. (Added later: That's what corresponds to the Rosarium (http://www.levity.com/alchemy/rosarium.html), which is two sets of ten each. However the tarot sequence could also be seen as two sets, of 11 each, which corresponds if we count the overtures.)

Added later: regarding scenes, we still have a discrepancy. There were different versions. The edition I read was the Hamburg of 1795, which was not the original. I don't know how many scenes each act had in the original; in general the edition I read ignored the libretto as much as possible in favor of the music. The editor (David J. Buch) seemed to have the attitude that it was more than enough just to give a translation.
At this page ...
http://www.bamptonopera.org/repertory/m ... detail.htm
... there are 22 songs (it includes the finals), 11 for each act. In the humorous description at ...
http://www.tamino-klassikforum.at/index ... eadid=1716
are 20 scenes for Act 1 (plus final) and 22 for Act 2 (plus final), but the final are songs. For each scene the author offers some content. As the 2 finals are counted as "songs", we would have 20 + 22 for the scenes and 22 for the songs.
This mathematical code 20 + 22 + 22 = is used in the arrangement of the 42 death gods in old Egypt and it is part of the binary scheme with 2^6 = 64 elements.

(... so I don't know, how your source comes to 29 scenes for the second act ?????)

Adam Weishaupt had binary ideas ...

Image

http://antimatrix.org/Convert/Books/Und ... rpion.html

Some of the leading dukes in Braunschweig or near Braunschweig were strong involved in Freemasonry and in some earlier time the family had sponsored Leibniz, who is seen as the inventor of the binary code. Naturally in the surrounding of Leibniz the binary scheme might have been studied, and some properties might have been discovered in a way, that it not naturally must have reached great public. People are often not so much interested in mathematical questions.

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In the question of the opera "Stein der Weisen" we seem to have the condition, that the Zauberflöte repeats the 22. And somehow we have these 14 proverbs and the 8 riddles, which are in Mozart's head since 1786 at the opportunity of a carnival in Vienna.
ONE night during the Viennese carnival of 1786, the 30-year-old Mozart dressed up as an Oriental philosopher for a masquerade at the Redoutensaal. About 20 years earlier he might have been entertaining some of the identical revelers by playing another role, the child prodigy (a "little man with his wig and his sword" is how Goethe remembered him). But this time, as if stepping out of "The Magic Flute" as Sarastro, he came bearing words of transcendent wisdom. He distributed a broadsheet that he carefully noted was for "the edification of the masked ball." Entitled "Excerpts From the Fragments of Zoroaster," it contained 8 riddles and 14 proverbs.

"I prefer open vice to ambiguous virtue," one proverb read; "at least I know where I stand." A riddle challenged: "One can possess me without seeing me. One can carry me without feeling me. One can give me without having me." The answer, referring to cuckoldry, came in an anagram: "Horns."

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/26/books ... all&src=pm
Sunday
19 February 1786
Vienna: Mozart takes part in a masked ball in the Redoutensälen in Vienna
Dressed as an Indian philosopher, he passed out a leaflet with 8 riddles and 14 proverbs for amusement ("Excerpts from the fragments of Zoroaster")

http://mozarteum.at/en/mozart-life-and- ... &jahr=1786
In 1786 Mozart appeared at the Carnival in Vienna dressed as Zoroaster, the Persian philosopher, and handed out pamphlets entitled “Excerpts from the Fragments of Zoroaster” containing eight riddles and fourteen proverbs. Danielpour says that “Mozart’s love for puzzles and games and mistaken identity has always fascinated me; this piece is also filled with contrapuntal puzzles and games and mistaken identities between various themes in the music.”
http://www.pittsburghsymphony.org/pghsy ... 5D006FDB6B

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Perhaps one has to study the Oberon. Mozart had nothing to do with it, but the whole success seems to have triggered the other fairy tales operas. And somehow is Wieland in all three of them.

Mozart met Wieland in winter 1777/1778 in Mannheim, so very early and just typically nearly 22 years old.
http://books.google.de/books?id=l6I6BwT ... rt&f=false

Wieland was already engaged in combinations of Singspiel and poetry before that.

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Added: I read here ...
[Wieland, Christoph Martin]: Oberon. Ein Gedicht in Vierzehn Gesängen. – Reutlingen: Johann Georg Fleischhauer 1781. 319, (1) S. 8°
What, if Mozart thought with the 14 proverbs at the Oberon ... :-) ... but the first version of 1780 had only 12 songs. I don't know, how much songs the final version had.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Mozart, Tarot, Isis, and Ercole d'Este

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There are 22 scenes before the Act 2 Finale in the libretto I have, too. The discrepancy is that the libretto I have has seven scenes within the Finale, for a total of 29.

Which is accurate? Looking at your link, I see that its descriptions of scenes, despite being from a "Sage", are not direct quotes, but paraphrases, using different words than the libretto and shortening what it says. The descriptions are marked with phrases like "Zu Beginn der Oper" or "um ihre Opfer", not in the libretto. And would the libretto call it an "Oper" or a Singspiel? Maybe if you found a real libretto, we could talk some more about this. Meanwhile, I will assume that there are 21 scenes in Act One and 29 in Act Two. There may be some significance to that; it remains to be seen (see my next post).

Your speculations about the 42 gods of Egypt might better be applied to such things as why there are 42 special cards in the Poilly, or why some lodges added 9 super-mystical initiations to the already-mystical 33 of the Scottish Rite (and the Petit Etteilla). The number of initiatory levels and the number of Poilly cards might possibly be connected somehow, or the number of levels have a connection to Weishaupt, pulling the strings; as for the 42 gods, I have to confess I can't remember what you said, somewhere, about where these people would have read about them.
Last edited by mikeh on 15 Oct 2012, 07:31, edited 2 times in total.
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