Introduction to Dietrich von Hildebrand's Mozart: Dietrich von Hildebrand in His Unknown Role As Master Phenomenologist of Art

It is with great joy that I write this introduction to Dietrich von Hildebrand's essay on the great Austrian composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.¹ Not only am I happy to offer for the first time in English a little gem in musical appreciation, I am equally pleased to be able to present a side of von Hildebrand's intellectual legacy that is almost entirely unknown. Among those who know anything about him, he is usually associated with one or another of his chief intellectual characteristics (such as his formation in phenomenology), with one or another facts about his life (such as his outspoken opposition to Hitler's National Socialism), or, most frequently, with one or another of his better known religious writings (such as Transformation in Christ).

As regards his essay on Mozart in Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (from hereon, Mozart) published in 1962, it is important to note that few associate the name von Hildebrand with aesthetics or the arts, let alone consider him an authority on these matters; for most people, the mention of his name usually brings to mind his philosophical work in ethics and his writings on religion. Yet not only was von Hildebrand raised in a unusually rich artistic milieu so that beauty played a role second in his life only to his passionate defense of truth and right, but he was also the author of a magisterial two-volume work in philosophical aesthetics, Ästhetik,² and three essays on the composers Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, as well as an unfinished but lengthy monograph on the music of the German composer Richard Wagner. During his life, von Hildebrand wrote often about questions having to do with sacred music, and among the papers contained in his literary estate is an intriguing essay on what it means for a person to be musically deep.³ I will say a good deal about the history and significance of Mozart, but first I will briefly review the milestones of von Hildebrand's life through the lens of his artistic, rather than his more well-known philosophical, career.

The Life of von Hildebrand through the Lens of Art and Beauty

Dietrich von Hildebrand was born at San Francesco, the family villa in Florence, Italy, on October 12, 1889. Though German by nationality, he never outgrew the deeply Italian spirit he imbibed during his early years in Italy. His father was the renowned German sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand (1847-1921), whose fountains and facades still decorate the German city of Munich today. Both von Hildebrand's parents were tremendously cultured and shared their rich milieu with their children. Von Hildebrand was the youngest in the family and had five older sisters.

San Francesco was a gathering place for people of culture and learning. Among the famous artists, writers, and musicians who were received as guests at San Francesco were German composer Richard Wagner and his wife, Cosima; composer and pianist Franz Liszt; Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal; poet Rainer Maria Rilke; great philosopher of religion Rudolf Otto; novelist and essayist Henry James; English Prime Minister William Gladstone; conductors Felix Mottl and Hermann Levi; and others.⁴ The day before von Hildebrand was born, the great German composer Richard Strauss came to visit his father, and so it was that von Hildebrand was "born under the aegis of music," as his wife Alice von Hildebrand so appropriately remarks.⁵ Von Hildebrand's childhood and youth were indelibly marked by the richness of his aesthetic experiences—as a youth predominantly in Florence and later at his family's second great home in Munich.

Each of von Hildebrand's sisters was unique, and some of them were endowed with unusual artistic talent. More than one of...