Page 179 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 177

See also: Stamitz’s Symphony in E-flat major 116–117 ■ Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor 128–131 ■ “Eroica” 138–141 ■
Symphonie fantastique 162–163 ■ Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 166–169 ■ Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 188–189

agnostic philosopher, whose A frontispiece of sheet music for
intellectual disillusionment leads Lizst’s Faust Symphony, published
him to be waylaid by the demon in Leipzig, Germany, lists the main
Mephistopheles’s offer of a world characters of the symphony and the
type of orchestral arrangement.
of sensual and sexual satisfaction.
In the poem’s first part
(published in 1808), Faust is added the finale, with its tenor
introduced to the trusting young soloist and male-voice choir, for the
Gretchen, whom he seduces, first performance three years later.
impregnates, and abandons to Rather than following Goethe’s
madness and death. The second complex narrative, each of the
part (completed in 1831) finds the symphony’s first three movements
remorseful Faust applying his presents a portrait of one of the
powers to the cause of human main characters. The long first
good; as Faust’s death approaches, movement portrays the multiple
Gretchen’s soul intercedes for him, layers of Faust’s restless nature
and angels carry Faust aloft to a in a complex, chromatic musical
higher world. The legend was taken language (based on all 12
up in Charles Gounod’s grand opera semitones in an octave). While
Faust, Robert Schumann’s oratorio Gretchen’s movement is Faust’s
Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, and by Berlioz. Enthralled, he sketched out opposite in its sweet winsomeness,
Wagner in his Faust Overture. The some ideas first for an opera, then a Mephistopheles has a diabolic
most significant musical version, symphony, but the idea remained Scherzo, in which each theme is
however, is the one by Hungarian on hold until he had settled in a distortion of one already used
virtuoso Franz Lizst. Goethe’s adopted hometown of to portray Faust. The finale is a
Weimar. In 1854, over a period radiant choral setting of the poem’s
Liszt’s Faust of two months, he composed concluding “Chorus mysticus,” as
The young Liszt was introduced to and orchestrated the first three Gretchen’s theme leads Faust’s
Faust Part I (in Gérard de Nerval’s movements of his Faust Symphony. soul, much like in Goethe’s version,
French translation) by his friend Dedicating the work to Berlioz, he into a transfigured musical world. ■

Franz Liszt In 1848, Liszt moved with the
Ukrainian Princess Carolyne
Born in Raiding, eastern Sayn-Wittgenstein to Weimar,
Austria, in 1811, Liszt showed where he composed principal
early talent as a pianist. He works of the Romantic era. Later,
studied in Vienna, where he he took minor Catholic orders
played to an amazed Beethoven, in Rome. In 1886, Liszt died of
and his subsequent teenage pneumonia in Bayreuth, Germany.
years in Paris consolidated his
standing as the supreme pianist Other key works
of his time. At 24 years old, he
eloped to Switzerland with 1842 Années de pèlerinage
Countess Marie d’Agoult; later, (Years of Pilgrimage)
in Italy, they had three children 1853 Piano Sonata in B minor
but drifted apart as Liszt 1856 Dante Symphony (choir
pursued a relentless concert and orchestra)
schedule throughout Europe. 1868 Christus (choral oratorio)

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