Körner, a famous German poet during the Wars of Liberation against Napoleonic hegemony, was free of personal worries due to his professional success culminating in the appointment as k. k. Hoftheaterdichter,[2] a playwright of the imperial court at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

I want to give up the newly acquired happy and carefree live joyously in order to fight for my fatherland, even if I have to spill my blood.

Ferdinand Lassalle, who had particularly liked the libretto and was equally enthusiastic about the music, had offered to write Weißheimer a textbook on Florian Geyer, Thomas Munzer or the Bohemian Jan Žižka, but his death put an end to this idea.

[7] For the premiere of Theodor Körner at the Berlin Court Opera, Liszt began with the former artistic director Count von Redern.

However, Count von Redern recommended Liszt to run the premiere on a different stage because Prince Louis Ferdinand was to play a role which would affect the Prussian royal family too strongly.

[8] Leyer und Schwert is an opera in five acts and a prelude: Three citizens talk about the current state of French-occupied Germany.

Subsequently, Major von Lützow appears, surrounded by a large crowd, reading a declaration by the king of Prussia that incites all citizens to enlist.

Toni, Körner's betrothed, awaits her fiancé who appears only to inform her that he must leave in order to fight for the liberation of Germany.

The second act opens in a recruitment office where Elise von Ahlefeld-Lützow and Friedrich Friesen as well as two volunteers are present.

The scene and thereby the act end with a rendition of Luther's chorale "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" ("A Mighty Fortress Is Our God").

These excerpts were performed in a version for piano in cooperation with the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, and recorded.