Christian Gottfried Körner
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Christian Gottfried Körner (1756-1831) was a German jurist and friend of Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller, born at Leipzig. He studied law at Göttingen and Leipzig and in 1783 became chief councilor of the consistory at Dresden, was appointed to the office of judge in the Court of Appeals in 1790, and in 1811 returned to the appellate court.
His home in Dresden was an imporant center for culture and the arts. Robert Riggs writes:
- The Körner household in Dresden ... became a literary and musical salon. Plays and essays were read; Singspiele and chamber music were performed; and lectures on art were given. Guests and participants included Johann Gottfried von Herder, Goethe, Wilhelm von Humboldt, the Schlegel brothers, Ludwig Tieck, Novalis, and the musicians Johann Naumann, Johann Hiller, Karl Zelter, Mozart, and Weber.[1]
Körner went so far as to have a small theater built in his home, at which his family and friends performed plays. A number of the plays of Friedrich Schiller, his close friend, received their private premieres in this theater.[2]
He corresponded with Goethe and was very intimate with Schiller, who lived with him much of the time between 1785 and 1787.
In 1815 he was forced to leave his position in Dresden, having come into conflict with its ruler over the issue of collaboration with Napoleon. He found another position, however in the Prussian service 1815 at Berlin, where he was state councilor and later Privy Councilor in the new Ministry of Education.
His best-known work was the anonymous Aesthetische Ansichten (1808), but of greater importance is Schillers Briefwechsel mit Körner (edited by Goedeke, Leipzig, 1874; by Geiger, Stuttgart, 1895-96). He also prepared the first collected edition of Schiller's works (1812-15) and Poetischer Nachlass Theodor Körners (1815). His collected works are edited by Stern (Leipzig, 1881).
[edit] Family
Körner married Minna Stock, the daughter of an engraver, in 1785, following the death of his father, who had been implacably opposed to the marriage on grounds of social class.[3] They lived, throughout their entire marriage, with the artist Dora Stock, Minna's older sister, with whom they were both close.
The Körners had two children who survived past infancy.[4] Both had short but high-achieving lives: Emma Körner (1788-1815), who became a skilled painter, and Theodor Körner (1791-1813), who became a renowned soldier-poet. Both died tragically young: Theodor in 1813 as a casualty of war, and Emma of a sudden illness in 1815; the parents were devastated at their loss.[5]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Riggs (1997, 600)
- ^ Siegel 1993, 49
- ^ Siegel 1993, ch. 1
- ^ Johann Edward, the first-born (24 July 1786) died at seven months; Siegel 1993, 23.
- ^ Siegel 1991
[edit] References
- Jonas, Briefwechsel Wilhelms von Humboldt mit Körner (Berlin, 1880)
- Jonas, Körner, biographische Nachrichten über ihn und sein Haus (Berlin, 1882)
- Riggs, Robert (1997) "'On the Representation of Character in Music': Christian Gottfried Körner's Aesthetics of Instrumental Music," The Musical Quarterly vol. 81, No. 4. (Winter, 1997), pp. 599-631.
- Siegel, Linda (1993) Dora Stock, portrait painter of the Körner circle in Dresden (1785-1815). Lewiston, N.Y. : E. Mellen Press.
- This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
