Wolf Goethe (Weimar, 1889) is a sympathetic appreciation by Otto Mejer, formerly president of the Lutheran consistory in Hanover. See also Jenny v. Gerstenbergk, Ottilie von Goethe und ihre Söhne Walther und Wolf (Stuttgart, 1901), and the article on Maximilian Wolfgang von Goethe by Max F. Hecker in Allgem. deutsche Biographie, Bd. 49, Nachträge (Leipzig, 1904).
(W. A. P.)
[1] After Walther’s death upwards of £10,000 in bonds, &c., were discovered put away and forgotten in escritoires and odd corners.
[2] This was the reason given by Baron Walther himself to the writer’s mother, an old friend of Frau von Goethe, who lived with her family in the Goethehaus for some years after 1871.
GOETZ, HERMANN (1840-1876), German musical composer, was born at Königsberg in Prussia, on the 17th of December 1840, and began his regular musical studies at the comparatively advanced age of seventeen. He entered the music-school of Professor Stern at Berlin, and studied composition chiefly under Ulrich and Hans von Bülow. In 1863 he was appointed organist at Winterthur in Switzerland, where he lived in obscurity for a number of years, occupying himself with composition during his leisure hours. One of his works was an opera, The Taming of the Shrew, the libretto skilfully adapted from Shakespeare’s play. After much delay it was produced at Mannheim (in October 1874), and its success was as instantaneous as it has up to the present proved lasting. It rapidly made the round of the great German theatres, and spread its composer’s fame over all the land. But Goetz did not live to enjoy this happy result for long. In December 1876 he died at Zürich from overwork. A second opera, Francesco da Rimini, on which he was engaged, remained a fragment; but it was finished according to his directions, and was performed for the first time at Mannheim a few months after the composer’s death on the 4th of December 1876. Besides his dramatic work, Goetz also wrote various compositions for chamber-music, of which a trio (Op. 1) and a quintet (Op. 16) have been given with great success at the London Monday Popular Concerts. Still more important is the Symphony in F. As a composer of comic opera Goetz lacks the sprightliness and artistic savoir faire so rarely found amongst Germanic nations. His was essentially a serious nature, and passion and pathos were to him more congenial than humour. The more serious sides of the subject are therefore insisted upon more successfully than Katherine’s ravings and Petruchio’s eccentricities. There are, however, very graceful passages, e.g. the singing lesson Bianca receives from her disguised lover. Goetz’s style, although influenced by Wagner and other masters, shows signs of a distinct individuality. The design of his music is essentially of a polyphonic character, and the working out and interweaving of his themes betray the musician of high scholarship. But breadth and beautiful flow of melody also were his, as is seen in the symphony, and perhaps still more in the quintet for pianoforte and strings above referred to. The most important of Goetz’s posthumous works are a setting of the 137th Psalm for soprano solo, chorus and orchestra, a “Spring” overture (Op. 15), and a pianoforte sonata for four hands (Op. 17).
GOFFE (or Gough), WILLIAM (fl. 1642-1660), English parliamentarian, son of Stephen Goffe, puritan rector of Stanmer in Essex, began life as an apprentice to a London salter, a zealous parliamentarian, but on the outbreak of the civil war he joined the army and became captain in Colonel Harley’s regiment of the new model in 1645. He was imprisoned in 1642 for his share in the petition to give the control of the militia to the parliament. By his marriage with Frances, daughter of General Edward Whalley, he became connected with Oliver Cromwell’s family and one of his most faithful followers. He was a member of the deputation which on the 6th of July 1647 brought up the charge against the eleven members. He was active in bringing the king to trial and signed the death warrant. In 1649 he received the honorary degree of M.A. at Oxford. He distinguished himself at Dunbar, commanding a regiment there and at Worcester. He assisted in the expulsion of Barebone’s parliament in 1653, took an active part in the suppression of Penruddock’s rising in July 1654, and in October 1655 was appointed major-general for Berkshire, Sussex and Hampshire. Meanwhile he had been elected member for Yarmouth in the parliament of 1654 and for Hampshire in that of 1656. He supported the proposal to bestow a royal title upon Cromwell, who greatly esteemed him, was included in the newly-constituted House of Lords, obtained Lambert’s place as major-general of the Foot, and was even thought of as a fit successor to Cromwell. As a member of the committee of nine appointed in June 1658 on public affairs, he was witness to the protector’s appointment of Richard Cromwell as his successor. He supported the latter during his brief tenure of power and his fall involved his own loss of influence. In November 1659 he took part in the futile mission sent by the army to Monk in Scotland, and at the Restoration escaped with his father-in-law General Edward Whalley to Massachusetts. Goffe’s political aims appear not to have gone much beyond fighting “to pull down Charles and set up Oliver”; and he was no doubt a man of deep religious feeling, who acted throughout according to a strict sense of duty as he conceived it. He was destined to pass the rest of his life in exile, separated from his wife and children, dying, it is supposed, about 1679.