SIM Yearbook 2022 “Zeitgenosse Hoffmann” published
News from 11/21/2025
The 2022 yearbook of the State Institute for Music Research on the topic of “Contemporary Hoffmann” is now available at https://simjb.journals.qucosa.de/simjb.
The contributions in this volume are based on the symposium “Zeitgenosse Hoffmann – Im Spannungsfeld von automatisierter und künstlerisch-individueller Musikproduktion” (Hoffmann the Contemporary – Between Automated and Artistic-Individual Music Production), which was held in November 2022 at the State Institute for Music Research. On the one hand, they focus on the reception of E.T.A. Hoffmann in compositions of the 19th and 20th centuries and, on the other hand, they trace his ambivalent fascination with musical automata, oscillating between attraction and fear, as it appears in his stories “The Sandman” or “The Automata,” up to the present day.
In this context, the concept of “contemporaneity” with Hoffmann's world of ideas and characters refers not only to the different interpretations of his art in different eras, but also to the present day, in which connections to his works are being made in the course of critical examination of new automated and AI-controlled processes.