Alois Jeitteles

Alois Isidor Jeitteles was an Austrian medical doctor, journalist and writer, best known for Ludwig van Beethoven's setting of his poem sequence, An die ferne Geliebte.

Life

Jeitteles was born in Brünn, to a Jewish family with a medical and rabbinic tradition. He studied philosophy in Prague and Brünn and medicine in Vienna. In 1819 he opened a medical practice in Brünn. He published poetry in the pamphlets "Selam" and "Aglaja". With his cousin he founded the Jewish weekly "Siona" in 1818. In the same year he collaborated with Ignaz Franz Castelli on "Der Schicksalsstrumpf", a parody of the fashionable :de:Schicksalstragödie or tragedy of fate. Jeitteles made numerous translations, including the Spanish comedy Die Macht des Blutes by Agustin Moreto as well as several French plays.
From 1848 to his death he edited the newspaper the "Brünner Zeitung".
Jeitteles died in Brünn and was buried in Brno Jewish Cemetery.
His daughter was the suffragette :de:Ottilie Bondy. He also had two sons, Richard and Robert.

''An die ferne Geliebte''

Jeitteles's poetic sequence An die ferne Geliebte , written in 1815 when he was 21, was set in 1816 as a song cycle by Ludwig van Beethoven, who was acquainted with both Alois and his cousin Ignaz. Beethoven's early biographer Anton Schindler recorded that Beethoven thanked Jeitteles for the inspiration he provided, but it is not clear whether Jeitteles wrote the poems specifically for Beethoven or whether Beethoven first saw them on publication.

Publications

Sieg, Friede, Heimkehr. Bey Gelegenheit der... Rückkehr... des Kaisers, Brünn: Trailer, 1814Die Hausgenossen. Lustspiel, Leipzig : Andrä, 1843Moderne Walpurgisnacht, Brünn: C. Winiker, 1848