Joseph Karl Bernard


Joseph Karl Bernard was an Austrian journalist and librettist, and friend of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Life

Bernard was born in Horatitz, and studied in Saaz, Prague and Heidelberg. He moved to Vienna about 1800, and was employed there by the Hofkriegsrat.
He edited the magazine Thalia from 1810 to 1813, and Friedensblätter in 1814; he was a collaborator for the magazine Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur und Mode. For 30 years until 1847 he was editor of Wiener Zeitung. From 1849 he published the daily paper Austria.

Librettist

He wrote the libretti for Louis Spohr's opera Faust, and Conradin Kreutzer's opera Libussa.
Bernard was a friend of Beethoven for many years, and appears frequently in Beethoven's conversation books. The composer often asked for his advice in various matters.
In 1815 Bernard rewrote the text, originally written by Aloys Weissenbach, of Beethoven's cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick, Op. 136. He later wrote the text for a projected oratorio by Beethoven, Der Sieg des Kreuzes, commissioned in 1818 by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. In 1823 Bernard delivered the text, awaited since 1820; Beethoven, dissatisfied with Bernard's work, told the Gesellschaft that corrections to the text were necessary. The oratorio was never written.