AcontiusCydippe1.0006

Georg Melchior Hoffmann, c. 1679 - 6 October 1715, Acontius und Cydippe, opera, first performed 1709 at Leipzig; music lost.

Hoffmann, who composed much sacred and secular choral music that has survived, also composed classically themed operas titled Die amazonische Königin Orithya (1713) and Rhea Sylvia, both lost, and perhaps Echo und Narzissus.

Acontius binds unwitting Cydippe to marriage by writing on an apple (or orange) the words "I will marry no man but Acontius." When Cydippe reads the oath, she is bound.

A tale originating with Callimachus, it was of interest to Ovid (the most Callimachean of the Roman poets?). Dryden is not the first, but perhaps the most influential English poet to treat the tale.

The image at right shows a ms. of the transversa part of Hoffmann's Magnificat in A minor, once attributed to JSBach; derived from Wikipedia s.v. "Melchior_Hoffmann_(composer)".

Bibliography:
Glöckner, Andreas. 2001. Grove Music Online (=Oxford Music Online), s.v. "Hoffmann, Melchior".

NB: Disambiguate between Georg Melchior Hoffmann and Melchior Hoffmann, the Anabaptist spirtualist (1495-1543) and from Johann Georg Hoffmann.