The British Library Stefan Zweig Collection: Catalogue of the Music Manuscripts (review)

Abstract

In his engrossing introduction to this remarkable catalog, Arthur Searle states that the work of the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) "is not as well known in Britain today as it deserves to be" (p. xi). It is probably safe to say that Zweig's work is even less known in America, though opera lovers will recognize his name as that of the librettist for Richard Strauss's Die schweigsame Frau. Strauss's description of the opera's libretto, in a 1933 letter to Zweig's publisher, as "the best text created in comic opera since Figaro" (p. 117) certainly gives us a measure of Zweig's stature as a poet and playwright. That the libretto was crafted "freely after Ben Jonson" (ibid.) hints at Zweig's other, perhaps most important, role in German letters: as an interpreter of non-German European culture for readers in Austria and Germany.