The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King - Hoffmann, E. T. A.

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Résumé :
A children's Christmas story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King is the magical adventure of Marie Stahlbaum?s favourite toy, the Nutcracker, who battles the nefarious Mouse-King in battle and takes the reader on a wonderful adventure, into a magical land of dolls. Probably Hoffman's most well-known story, produced in 1816, due to the fact that - some seventy-six years later - it inspired Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker. A true Christmas classic, perfect for festive bedtime reading for adults and children a-like. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776 - 1822) was born in K?nigsberg, East Prussia. Hoffmann's family were all jurists, and during his youth he was initially encouraged to pursue a career in law. However, in his late teens Hoffman became increasingly interested in literature and philosophy, and spent much of his time reading German classicists and attending lectures by, amongst others, Immanuel Kant. Hoffman went on to produce a great range of both literary and musical works.

Biographie:
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a German novelist of fantasy and Gothic horror, as well as a jurist, composer, music critic, and artist. His stories serve as the foundation for Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffmann appears as the hero (albeit substantially embellished). He also wrote the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which served as the basis for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker. The ballet Coppelia is based on two additional stories by Hoffmann, while Schumann's Kreisleriana is based on Hoffmann's character Johannes Kreisler. Hoffmann's maternal and paternal ancestors were jurists. His father, Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann (1736-97), was an attorney in Konigsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), as well as a poet and amateur violist. In 1767, he married his relative Lovisa Albertina Doerffer (1748-96). Ernst Theodor Wilhelm, born on 24 January 1776, was the youngest of three children, of whom the second died in infancy. Between 1781 and 1792, he attended the Lutheran school, or Burgschule, where he excelled in classical studies. He was taught sketching by Saemann and counterpoint by Podbileski, a Polish organist who would serve as the template for Abraham Liscot in Kater Murr.

Sommaire:
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (24 janvier 1776 - 25 juin 1822) est un ?crivain romantique et un compositeur, ?galement dessinateur et juriste allemand....