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Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night: The Heathen Muse in European Culture, 1700-1850.

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Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night: The Heathen Muse in European Culture, 1700-1850. By John Michael Cooper. (Eastman Studies in Music.) Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007. [xvi, 248 p. ISBN-10: 1580462529; ISBN-13 9781580462525. $75.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliographic references, index.

In Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night John Michael Cooper sets out to discuss Mendelssohn's musical and Goethe's literary treatments of the Walpurgis Night legend in its broadest possible context. While Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht, op. 60, is the obvious focal point of this musicological study, Cooper decided to move "gradually from context to text, and then on to reception" (p. xiv). The seven chapters therefore move from the "general, historical, religious, and biographical contexts for the creation of Goethe's and Mendelssohn's treatment of the Walpurgis-night" (p. xiv) to tracing the genesis and interpretation of these highly influential works; the book closes with a brief reception history and some thoughts on performance practice. The common theme throughout all these different discussions is Goethe's and Mendelssohn's "handling of the Walpurgis Night as a cultural, historical, and social topos" (p. xiii), portraying these influential artists as mediators...

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