Eftychia Papanikolaou is assistant professor of musicology and coordinator of music history studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Her research (from Haydn and Brahms to Mahler’s fi n-de-siècle Vienna), focuses on the in- terconnections of music, religion, and politics in the long nineteenth century, with emphasis on the sacred as a musical topos. She is currently completing a monograph on the genre of the Romantic Symphonic Mass <
[email protected]>. famous poetic inter- it was there that the Requiem für Mignon polations from Johann (subsequently the second Abteilung, Op. The Wolfgang von Goethe’s 98b), received its premiere as an inde- Wilhelm Meisters Leh- pendent composition on November 21, rjahre [Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship], 1850. With this dramatic setting for solo especially the “Mignon” lieder, hold a voices, chorus, and orchestra Schumann’s prestigious place in nineteenth-century Wilhelm Meister project was completed. In lied literature. Mignon, the novel’s adoles- under 12 minutes, this “charming” piece, cent girl, possesses a strange personality as Clara Schumann put it in a letter, epito- whose mysterious traits will be discussed mizes Schumann’s predilection for music further later. Goethe included ten songs in that defi es generic classifi cation. This Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, eight of which article will consider the elevated status were fi rst set to music by Johann Fried- choral-orchestral compositions held in rich Reichardt (1752–1814) and were Schumann’s output and will shed light on included in the novel’s original publication tangential connections between the com- (1795–96). Four of those songs are sung poser’s musico-dramatic approach and his by the Harper, a character reminiscent of engagement with the German tradition.