Other Settings of Goethe's Text
An earlier setting of the text, also entitled Erwin und Elmire, was made by Johann André and first performed in May 1775 in Frankfurt. After Anna Amalia’s, several more settings were to follow, including ones by Carl David Stegmann (Hamburg, 1776), Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (Weimar, 1785) and Karl Christian Agthe (Ballenstedt, 1785). The most recent was by the Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck (1886–1957) which premiered in 1915.
Goethe revised the libretto in 1787/88 while touring in Italy, introducing a secondary pair of lovers into the tale, and adpating the spoken dialogue into recitative. This version was set by Johann Friedrich Reichardt and received its premiere in Berlin in early 1793.
The Romanze "Ein Veilchen" from Erwin und Elmire was the only setting of Goethe's text made by Mozart, his song K. 476 (1785). The story eventually became the subject of satire: in Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Trial by Jury (1875), the two lovers (here Edwin and Angelina) become the principal parties to a divorce case.
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