Geraldine McGreevy . Graham Johnson

No German poet inspired as many generations of composers to set his words to music as Goethe. The poems in his Bildungsroman 'Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre', and in particular the character of Mignon, appealed to the imagination of all the great lieder composers. In the book, Mignon is a mysterious young waif who is rescued by Wilhelm Meister from a circus troupe that was treating her badly. No one knows where Mignon comes from. She says little, and expresses her feelings only in melancholy songs in which she sings of her yearning for her native country and for love - typical Romantic topoi that consequently held a great attraction for many song composers. Through these various compositions, the Mignon Lieder gradually came to lead a life of their own. Whereas the versions by Zelter and Beethoven still place them in their original framework of the novel, Schubert and Schumann increasingly focus on the universally human dimension of the motifs of Sehnsucht and Heimatlosigkeit. The Mignon Lieder by Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) even exceed those of his predecessors in power and expression. Sixty years after Schubert, Mignon is no longer an innocent child. By means of an expressive and emotional piano part with orchestral qualities and a declamatory singing style, Wolf paints a psychological portrait of a tormented woman who epitomises the decadent bourgeois society of the end of the nineteenth century.