8 - Das Sanctus

Summary

IN THE STUDIES DEALING WITH Das Sanctus (1817), it is particularly striking that the role of the Kapellmeister has received little attention, a fact that is perhaps all the more remarkable when we consider the critical attention paid to similar figures in Hoffmann's oeuvre generally because of their relation to the author's life and the frequency with which they appear in his work: Johannes Kreisler in the “Kreisleriana,” the composer Gluck in Ritter Gluck, or the figure of the Komponist in Der Dichter und der Komponist, to name but three. Franz Loquai, Friedhelm Auhuber, and Ulrich Schönherr hardly refer to the Kapellmeister at all, and where they do, they regard him as being little more than the apparent recipient of the story told by the Enthusiast. Sabine Laußmann takes a negative view of the Kapellmeister in her brief analysis of the character, and suggests that he ignores the real meaning of the Enthusiast's story from purely selfish motives, and is interested only in the possibility of adapting the material for an opera: “Die literarische Kunst seiner Zeitgenossen ist also dem Kapellmeister nur ein Mittel zum Zweck.” As we shall see, however, the Kapellmeister plays a much more important role in the novella than critics have been willing to acknowledge hitherto.