A comparative analysis of Mignon's song Kennst du das Land

Abstract

The creative project is a combination of a graduate level recital with a supporting paper. The supporting paper is an in depth study of five different musical settings of the same poem. The poem Kennst du das Land is written by Goethe and can be found in his novel Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre sung by the character Mignon. This poem became a favorite song text for composers during the evolution of the genre of the German Lied. This paper is an in depth study of the versions by Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Hugo Wolf. These five versions of the song show many different interpretations of the text itself, and each composer exercises different compositional techniques to create their unique musical masterpiece based around this text.