Schubert, Mignon, and Her Secret

摘要

Schubert set Mignon's lyric “Hei mich nicht reden” (from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre) twice. The first setting constitutes an extremely ambivalent and mysterious interpretation of Mignon, and the secret of which she speaks; many components of this initial setting are radically reused in the second to create an alternative reading that speaks more clearly of the secret's tragic nature. Schubert's contraction of syphilis between the two settings may have had an impact on his understanding of Mignon and her own illness, although the very consideration of this possibility is primarily testament to the compelling nature of Schubert's differing poetic interpretations.