ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a repertoire considering the problem of the lyric persona in Mendelssohn's solo songs. It deals with the question of the lyric voice as it expresses itself in the Lieder themselves, employing relatively common means of interpretation to describe the range of Mendelssohn's approach to the genre. The chapter considers a more unusual view of the song persona, applying Mendelssohn's own musical aesthetic to the Lied in particular. It also deals with the voice of the lyric persona in the songs viewed from a historical standpoint. In the Classic aesthetic of the eighteenth century, musical expression was typically conceived of and heard as autonomous, idealized, and conventional. In a broad sense, the musical voice of the style was universal and cosmopolitan. The nineteenth-century Romantics took the contrary view. It became desirable in Romanticism to connect any piece of music to an identifiable voice.
