Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm
Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm (26 September 1723[1] – 19 December 1807[2]) was a German-born French-language journalist, art critic, diplomat and contributor to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.[3] In 1765 Grimm wrote Poème lyrique, an influential article for the Encyclopédie on lyric and opera librettos.[4][5][6][7][8] Like Christoph Willibald Gluck and Ranieri de' Calzabigi, Grimm became interested in opera reform. According to Martin Fontius , a German literary theorist, "sooner or later a book entitled The Aesthetic Ideas of Grimm will have to be written."[9]
Early years
Grimm was born at
His acquaintance with Rousseau soon ripened into warm friendship, through a mutual sympathy in regard to music and theater, and led to a close association with the
Correspondance littéraire
In 1753, following the example of the abbé Raynal, and with the latter's encouragement, Grimm began a literary newsletter with various German sovereigns.[a] The first number of the Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique was dated 15 May 1753.[16] With the aid of friends, especially of Diderot[b] and Mme. d'Épinay, who reviewed many plays, always anonymously, during his temporary absences from France, Grimm himself carried on the Correspondance littéraire, which consisted of two letters a month[2] that were painstakingly copied in manuscript by amanuenses safely apart from the French censor in Zweibrücken, just over the border in the Palatinate.
Eventually, Grimm counted among his 16 (or 25) subscribers:
The correspondence of Grimm was strictly confidential and was not divulged during his lifetime. It embraces nearly the whole period from 1750 to 1790, but the later volumes, 1773 to 1790, were chiefly the work of his secretary, the Swiss Jakob Heinrich Meister , with whom he made acquaintance in the salon of Suzanne Curchod, the wife of Jacques Necker. At first he contented himself with enumerating the chief current views in literature and art and indicating very slightly the contents of the principal new books, but gradually his criticisms became more extended and trenchant, and he touched on nearly every subject — political, literary, artistic, social and religious — that interested the Parisian society of the time. His notices of contemporaries are somewhat severe, and he exhibits the foibles and selfishness of the society in which he moved; but he was unbiased in his literary judgments, and time has only served to confirm his criticisms. In style and manner of expression, he is thoroughly French. He is generally somewhat cold in his appreciation, but his literary taste is delicate and subtle, and it was the opinion of Sainte-Beuve that the quality of his thought in his best moments will compare not unfavourably even with that of Voltaire. His religious and philosophical opinions were entirely sceptical.[2]
Content of the Correspondance
For several years, Grimm reported on the painters and paintings in the
Grimm did not appreciate Mondonville's Daphnis et Alcimadure, though he approved the use of the Occitan language, as being closer to Italian; according to Grimm "In Zoroastre it is day and night alternately but as the poet ... cannot count up to five he has got so muddled in his reckoning that he has been compelled to make it be day and night two or three times in each act so that it might be day at the end of the play". He wrote about Caffarelli; about Pierre Beaumarchais.[25] Grimm didn't think much of Antoine de Léris: "The author claims that the public received his work with indulgence. If perfect oblivion may so be called, the author is right to be grateful";[26] The diminished Correspondance continued without Grimm until the revolutionary year 1790.[citation needed]
Connections
In 1755, after the death of Count von Friesen (1727–1755), who was a nephew of
J.-J. Rousseau
In 1751, Grimm was introduced by Rousseau to Madame d'Épinay, with whom he began a 30-year liaison two years later,[27] which led after four years to an irreconcilable rupture between him, Diderot and Rousseau.[2][28]
Grimm and d'Holbach supported financially the mother of Thérèse Levasseur. Instead of Rousseau, Grimm accompanied Mme. d'Épinay to Geneva to visit doctor Théodore Tronchin.[29] Rousseau believed Grimm had made her pregnant.[30]
Grimm criticized Rousseau's
In 1783, Grimm lost Mme. Épinay, his most intimate friend, and the following year Diderot.
Not long after, he showed Prince Henry of Prussia, on a diplomatic trip, in Paris.
Mozart's three visits to Paris
After their long stay in London (15 months) and Holland (8 months),[d] the Mozarts closed their "Grand Tour", which lasted three years and a half, by stopping over in Paris from 10 May to 9 July 1766, for Mozart's second visit to the French capital. Again, they were helped, guided, and mentored by Grimm. The children were by then 10 and 15 and had lost some of their public appeal as young prodigies on the now somewhat blasés Parisians. Grimm wrote a very flattering letter about the Mozart children dated 15 July 1766 in his Correspondance littéraire. Commenting on Mozart's remarkable progress in all areas of music-making, Grimm predicted the future operatic success of the young composer: "He has even written several Italian arias, and I have little doubt that before he has reached the age of twelve, he will already have had an opera performed at some Italian theatre."[38][e]
However, Abert warns that the reason why Grimm's Journal "nonetheless needs to be treated with caution is due to the personality of its principal contributor, for Grimm was not sufficiently well trained as a musician to do justice to the art that he was describing, nor was he the man to let slip the opportunity for a flash of wit or eloquent turn of phrase, even if it meant violating the truth in the process."[32] Grimm's second prediction at the end of the same letter didn't turn out as prescient as the first one: "If these children live, they will not remain at Salzburg. Before long monarchs will vie for their possession." In fact, Mozart was unable to obtain employment as an opera composer from a European court and remained a free-lance opera writer all his life.
Leopold sent Mozart, then aged 22, to Paris for his third and last visit, from 23 March to 26 September 1778. But this time Mozart went only with his mother, Anna Maria Mozart, while Leopold remained in Salzburg, in order to save his employment. Grimm helped, guided, and advised Mozart and his mother again, acting as a proud manager.[39] But Mozart mostly encountered a series of disappointments, while tragedy struck when Anna Maria fell ill with typhoid fever[40] and died on 3 July 1778.[41] After the death of his mother, Mozart moved in with Grimm who was living with Mme d'Épinay, at 5, rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin.[42][43] For the first time in his life, Mozart was on his own. Mozart stayed more than two months in pretty little room for invalids with a very agreeable prospect, which belonged to Louise d'Épinay; he sometimes dined with them but most of the time he was out.[44]
Grimm, a man with strong opinions, nicknamed "Tyran le Blanc",[45] and Mozart did not get along very well. Mozart found himself disappointed in Paris. The city was "indescribably dirty"; Grimm complained he was "not running around enough" to get pupils, as he found that calling on his introductions was tiring, too expensive, and unproductive: "People pay their respects, and that's it. They arrange for me to come on such and such a day; I then play for them, and they say Oh, c'est un prodige, c'est inconcevable, c'est étonnant. And, with that, adieu."[46] He never got paid for his Concerto for flute and harp in C, K. 299, written for the Duke of Guines and his daughter, nor for his ballet Les petits riens K. 299b.[47]
Mozart was recruited by the director of the "
Suspicious by nature, Mozart ended up distrusting Grimm, while "Grimm himself was bound to find Mozart increasingly baffling as a person — with his curious mixture of self-confidence and dreaminess". Mozart found himself obliged to borrow "as much as fifteen louis d'or" from Grimm. Voltaire's death on 30 May 1778 made clear "the full extent of the yawning void between them".[55] Grimm warned Leopold that the need for continual and intense networking in Paris was too demanding for Wolfgang, "for it is a very tiring thing to run to the four corners of Paris and exhaust oneself in explanations. And then this profession will not please him, because it will keep him from writing, which is what he likes above all things."[56] Their dealings "ended on a note of the deepest disharmony."[57] Leopold agreed that Mozart should leave Paris: "You don't like Paris, and on the whole I don't blame you ... My next letter will tell you that you are to leave Paris."[58] Grimm organized for Mozart's trip to Strasbourg,[59] promising a diligence to cover the trip in five days, but forced Mozart to travel by stagecoach, a journey that took twelve days. Mozart "himself left the city on 26 September, as ill-tempered and disgruntled as when he had arrived there." Mozart broke the journey in Nancy on 3 October, finally arriving in Strasbourg on 14 October 1778.[60]
In the course of his three visits, Mozart spent a total of 13 months in Paris, all of them under the guidance and assistance of Grimm.
Catherine II of Russia
Grimm's introduction to
Grimm loved to play chess and cards with the empress. According to Simon Dixon, he influenced Catherine with his ideas on Rousseau.
Chevalier de Saint-Georges
Like Christoph Willibald Gluck and Ranieri de' Calzabigi, Grimm was occupied with operatic reform. Grimm loved theatre, criticized the Comédie-Française and praised the private theatre of Madame de Montesson, the wife of his employer.
In 1776, the Académie royale de musique (the
Retirement
From Erinnerungen einer Urgrossmutter, it becomes clear that, in 1792, he left Rue du Mont-Blanc (in 1792, during the French Revolution, rue de la Chaussée d'Antin was renamed rue du Mont-Blanc, after the department of that name. It regained its original name in 1815), and settled in Gotha, living in the ducal palace Friedenstein Palace. His poverty was relieved by Catherine, who shortly before her death appointed him minister of Russia at Hamburg.[2] Although not very thrilled, he travelled with Émilie de Belsunce, Mme. d'Épinay's granddaughter, later Comtesse de Bueil. When he suddenly became blind on 17 January 1797, he gave up his new post. (Grimm had problems with his eyesight since 1762.) He and the young Émilie stayed a few weeks in Altona. They travelled to Braunschweig, where they stayed from the summer of 1797 until June 1800, and where Émilie was tutored by Willem Bilderdijk. Grimm was then invited again by Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. He died at Gotha on 19 December 1807.
The main-belt asteroid
Works
Grimm's Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique ..., depuis 1753 jusqu'en 1769, was edited, with many excisions, by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard and published at Paris in 1812, in 6 vols. 8vo; deuxième partie, de 1771 a 1782, in 1812 in 5 vols. 8vo; and troisième partie, pendant une partie des années 1775 et 1776, et pendant les années 1782 a 1790 inclusivement, in 1813 in 5 vols. 8vo. A supplementary volume appeared in 1814; the whole correspondence was collected and published by Jules-Antoine Taschereau , with the assistance of A. Chaudé, in a Nouvelle Édition, revue et mise dans un meilleur ordre, avec des notes et des éclaircissements, et oil se trouvent rétablies pour la première fois les phrases supprimées par la censure impériale (Paris, 1829, 15 vols. 8vo); and the Correspondance inédite, et recueil de lettres, poésies, morceaux, et fragments retranchés par la censure impériale en 1812 et 1813 was published in 1829. The standard edition was that of Maurice Tourneux (16 vols., 1877–1882).[2] It is now being replaced by the new edition published by Ulla Kölving at the Centre international d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, Ferney-Voltaire.
Grimm's Mémoire Historique sur l'origine et les suites de mon attachement pour l'impératrice Catherine II jusqu'au décès de sa majesté impériale, and Catherine's correspondence with Grimm (1774–1796) were published by Yakov Grot in 1880, in the collection of the Russian Imperial Historical Society. She treats him very familiarly and calls him Heraclite, Georges Dandin, etc. At the time of the Revolution, she begged him to destroy her letters, but he refused, and after his death, they were returned to Saint Petersburg. Grimm's side of the correspondence, however, is only partially preserved. He signs himself "Pleureur". Some of Grimm's letters, besides the official correspondence, are included in the edition of Tourneux; others are contained in the Erinnerungen einer Urgrossmutter of Katharina von Bechtolsheim, edited (Berlin, 1902) by Count C. Oberndorff.[2]
Notes
- ^ Raynal's own letters, Nouvelles littéraires, dispatched to various German courts, keeping the European aristocracy abreast of current cultural developments in Paris, ceased early in 1755.
- ^ Diderot's Madame de La Carlière and Supplément au voyage de Bougainville were first published in the journal Correspondance littéraire.
- ^ The Mozarts' "Grand Tour" in Europe, lasted from 9 June 1763 to 30 November 1766. Mozart was aged 7½ to just short of 11. His sister Nannerl was 4½ years older than Wolfgang, and went from age 12 to past 15.
- ^ The Mozarts stayed in London for 15 months, their longest and most successful European visit, from 23 April 1764 to 24 July 1765. They went off to Holland for nearly 8 months, staying mostly at The Hague, from 11 September 1765 to the end of April 1766.
- Archbishop of Salzburg in 1767: Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots on a German libretto, and Apollo et Hyacinthus, in Latin. Only his third opera, La finta semplice, K. 51 (46a), was on an Italian libretto, written in Vienna in 1768 for the Viennese opera house, but it was not produced there and was only performed in Salzburg in 1769.
- ^ There is great controversy whether this work, 297b for flute, oboe, horn and bassoon, is the same as KAnh. C14.01, another sinfonia concertante in E-flat major for clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon, which is "Mozart-sounding", but of contested authenticity. Abert 2007, p. 504, n. 56.
- ^ He was made a baron of the Holy Roman Empire in 1772, paid by Princess Caroline Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt.
References
- ^ See Friedrich Melchior von Grimm (FactGrid Q421806), retrieved 29 June 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Frank A. Kafker: Notices sur les auteurs des dix-sept volumes de « discours » de l'Encyclopédie. Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie. 1989, Volume 7, Numéro 7, p. 142
- ^ Larousse Dictionnaire de la musique
- ^ Music and the Origins of Language: Theories from the French Enlightenment by Downing A. Thomas, p. 148.
- ^ Lully Studies by John Hajdu Heyer, p. 248
- ^ A History of Western Musical Aesthetics by Edward A. Lippman, p. 171
- ^ "King's College London, seminar 1. Music: universal, national, nationalistic". Archived from the original on 18 November 2018. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
- ^ "Wolfgang Amadé Mozart" by Georg Knepler, p. 43.
- ^ The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650–1815, by John Spitzer, Neal Zaslaw, p. 186.; Lettre de M. Grimm sur Omphale ...
- ^ Cranston 1991a, p. 276.
- ^ Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712–1754, p. 276.
- ^ Spectacles de Paris, 1752, p. 87
- ^ M. Grimm, Lettre sur Omphale, 1752, p. 50.
- ^ Cranston 1991a, pp. 252–253.
- ^ Ulla Kölving, "Introduction générale" to idem (ed.): Friedrich Melchior Grimm. Correspondance littéraire. Tome 1: 1753–1754, Ferney-Voltaire, Centre International d’Étude du xviiie siècle, 2006, pp. XXI–LXXII
- ^ Mme Geoffrin to Stanislaus Augustus, quoted in Francis Steegmuller, 1991, p. 249, note 1.
- ^ "Grimm's heirs by Alan Jacobs". Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
- ^ Braham 1989, p. 30.
- ISBN 3-7608-1303-8, p. 107
- ^ Grimm's Correspondance littéraire, 1763
- ^ Grimm's Correspondance littéraire, 1766
- ^ Historical & literary memoirs and anecdotes by Friedrich Melchior Grimm (Freiherr von), Denis Diderot, p. 353.
- ^ Cranston 1991a, p. 310.
- ^ Claude Manceron (1972). Les Hommes de la liberté I. Les vingt ans du Roi 1774–1778, p. 160.
- ^ L'auteur prétend que le public reçut alors son ouvrage avec indulgence. Si le parfait oubli peut s'appeler ainsi, l'auteur a raison d'être reconnaissant (Grimm, Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique February 1763).
- ^ Cranston 1991b, pp. 17–18.
- ^ "The Rousseau Affair". Archived from the original on 8 April 2014. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
- ^ Damrosch 2007, pp. 280–282.
- ^ Cranston 1991b, p. 82.
- ^ Damrosch 2007, p. 325.
- ^ a b Abert 2007, p. 36.
- ^ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography, by Piero Melograni, p. 15
- ^ Mozart's Chamber Music with Keyboard, by Martin Harlow, p. 29
- ^ The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, by Cliff Eisen, Simon P. Keefe, p. 387.
- ^ Banat 2006, p. 106.
- ^ Abert 2007, pp. 36–39.
- ^ A full copy of this letter is to be found in Otto Erich Deutsch, Mozart. A Documentary Biography (2d edition: London, 1966), pp. 56–57. The letter is shown in the Google version of Deutsch's book Letter of Grimm, 15 July 1766 on the visit of the Mozarts in Paris, 10 May – 9 July 1766. This whole letter by Grimm is a remarkable tribute to young Mozart's prodigious abilities. It rivals the famous testimony of 1770 that Daines Barrington sent to the Royal Society about his examination of Mozart in June 1764, which is also online.
- ^ Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters by Wolfgang Mozart
- ISBN 9782825136553
- ^ Abert 2007, p. 509.
- ^ Mozart's letter to his father written in Paris and dated (in French) 9 juillet 1778 (9 July 1778), in Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozzart, selected and edited by Hans Mersmann, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, new edition 1972, p. 111
- ^ "Mozart letters from Paris, Nancy, Strasbourg, Mannheim, Munchen, 1778–1779". Archived from the original on 14 January 2015. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
- ^ The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vol. 1
- ^ Cranston 1991b, p. 38.
- ^ Mozart's letter of 1 May 1778, quoted by Abert (2007), p. 494. Grimm commented to Leopold: "In this country the great public knows nothing about music. Consequently everything depends on names", as reported by Leopold to his son, in his letter of 13 August 1778, quoted by Abert (2007), p. 498.
- ^ Abert 2007, p. 496; and Mozart's letter of 9 July 1778, quoted by Abert 2007, p. 506.
- ^ Mozart's letter of 3 July 1778, in Abert 2007, p. 507.
- ^ Mozart's letter of 18 July 1778, in Abert 2007, pp. 498–499.
- ^ Mozart's letter of 9 July 1778, in Abert 2007, p. 499.
- ^ Mozart's letter of 31 July 1778, quoted in Abert 2007, p. 499.
- ^ Letter of 3 July 1778, Abert 2007, p. 505.
- ^ Leopold's letter of 1 February 1764, quoted in Abert 2007, p. 36.
- ^ Mozart's letter of 1 May 1778, quoted in Abert 2007, ch. 21, "Mozart in Paris", pp. 498–499.
- ^ Abert 2007, p. 510.
- ^ Grimm, as quoted by Leopold in his letter of 13 August 1778, in Abert 2007, p. 498.
- ^ Abert 2007, p. 498.
- ^ Leopold's letter of 31 August 1778, in Abert 2007, p. 515.
- ^ "Mozart letters from Paris, Nancy, Strasbourg, Mannheim, Munchen". Archived from the original on 14 January 2015. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
- ^ Abert 2007, ch. 21 "Mozart in Paris", pp. 493–526, and 517, 526.
- ^ Israel 2011, p. 439.
- ^ Israel 2011, pp. 270, 272.
- ^ Simon Dixon (2009) Catherine the Great, p. 222.
- ^ Inna Gorbatov, Catherine the Great and the French Philosophers of the Enlightenment, Academica Press Bethesda, MD, 1955, p. 223
- ^ Grimm, Melchior, Baron (1877–1882). Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique (in French). Vol. IX. Paris: Garnier Frères. p. 183.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Banat 2006, p. 171.
- ^ Braham 1989, pp. 212–214.
- ^ Les Lotissements de la Chaussée d'Antin
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-300-07223-5. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- Banat, Gabriel (2006). The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow. Lives in music series. Pendragon Press. ISBN 978-1-57647-109-8. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- Braham, A. (1989). The Architecture of the French Enlightenment. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06739-4. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 599–600. This turn cites:
- Mme d'Épinay, Mémoires
- Rousseau, Confessions
- E. Scherer, Melchior Grimm (1887)
- Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. vii
- K. A. Georges, Friedrich Melchior Grimm (Hanover and Leipzig, 1904).
- ISBN 978-0-226-11862-8.
- Cranston, Maurice (1991b). ISBN 0-226-11864-9.
- ISBN 978-0-618-87202-2. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-19-954820-0. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
External links
- Media related to Friedrich Melchior Grimm at Wikimedia Commons