German poet and dramatist.

As well as poetry, Hebbel wrote comedies (e.g. Der Diamant, 1847), tragedies (e.g. Maria Magdalena, 1844, and the trilogy Die Nibelungen, 1862), and a tragi-comedy (Ein Trauerspiel in Sizilien, 1845). Schenker comments extensively on Hebbel's Judith und Holofernes, in an undated essay that appears at the end of the 1910 diary.

Hebbel's poem "Requiem: Seele, vergiß sie nicht" was set to music by Peter Cornelius (1862), Siegmund von Hausegger (1907 ‒ on which Schenker comments in detail in his diary for January 15, 1908), and Max Reger (1915 ‒ Hebbel Requiem); Cornelius set several other poems; and "Schlafen, schlafen" was set by Alban Berg (1910). Hebbel's tragedy Judith und Holofernes was set as an opera by Emil von Reznicek (1922), and Schumann's Genoveva (1847) is based in part on Hebbel's tragedy of that name. Eduard Lassen wrote incidental music to Die Nibelungen (1873), excerpts from which were transcribed for piano by Liszt in Aus der Musik zu Hebbels Nibelungen und Goethes Faust (1879).

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