Wilhelm Busch
born Wiedensahl bei Stadthagen, April 15, 1832; died Mechtshausen, Jan 9, 1908
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German artist and poet, most famous for his children's picture stories, among which Max und Moritz (1865) became a classic.
Many couplets from Busch's humorous verses have achieved the status of adages in the German language, such as "Vater werden ist nicht schwer, Vater sein dagegen sehr" ("Becoming a father is not hard; being one, on the other hand, is very hard") or "Dieses war der erste Streich, doch der zweite folgt sogleich" ("This was the initial trick, but the second follows quick"). Only Goethe and Schiller are quoted more frequently in German than Busch.
In a letter to Karl Grunsky, Schenker refers to Richard Strauss and Max Reger disparagingly as "the Max and Moritz of our present-day art" (OJ 5/15, [1], January 1, 1908). Felix-Eberhard von Cube quotes an adage by Busch in a letter to Schenker (OJ 9/34, [40], June 2, 1934).
Contributor:
- Marko Deisinger