Max Kalbeck was a close friend and partisan of Johannes Brahms. Kalbeck's principal achievement was his eight-volume biography of that composer, published from 1904 to 1914, which has never been translated into English. Kalbeck also edited several volumes of Brahms's correspondence and in 1918, the letters of the poets Gottfried Keller and Paul Heyse, as well as publishing two collections of his own music reviews. Kalbeck wrote new libretti for Mozart's "Bastien und Bastienne" and "La finta giardiniera"; and he revised those of "Don Giovanni" and "The Marriage of Figaro" for Gustav Mahler's productions at the Vienna Hofoper. In addition, he supplied
The Cobbler and the Financier composer Henri-Joseph Rigel made a two-act comic opera of the fable in 1778. He was followed by Jacques Offenbach who, having set the fable for soloist and small orchestra as part of his "6 fables de la Fontaine" in 1842, later adapted the story to a one-act comic opera in 1856 in which the heroine sings a parody of his own setting. In that light-hearted entertainment, the cobbler turns the tables on his opponent by using the 300 crowns he is given to beat the financier at cards, taking over all his assets and winning the hand of his daughter.