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PROGRAM NOTES by Klay and Karen Woodworth Franz Liszt A Faust Symphony Franz Liszt first gained prominence as a piano prodigy. At the age of ten he traveled to Vienna to study with Carl Czerny and Antonio Salieri. While in Vienna, he met Beethoven and played for Schubert. A teenage love affair led to a nervous breakdown, the publication of (false) obituary notices for the young pianist in Paris, and a nearly three-year withdrawal from the concert stage. Meeting Hector Berlioz and experiencing Nicolo Paganini’s violin performances reawakened the musician in Liszt in 1831. The combination of his fabulous talents and a rather notorious lifestyle made Liszt the most popular pianist in Europe by 1839. Non-stop performances over the next eight years allowed him to amass enough personal wealth to retire from performing and conducting. He was appointed music director of the city of Weimar in 1848. Although this position was mostly honorary, it did come with a comfortable house in which Liszt could get serious about composing. Liszt resigned from Weimar in 1858, but during that decade he wrote many of his works for orchestra and began his close (if stormy) relationship with Richard Wagner, who would eventually become his son-in-law. Around 1830, through his friendship with Hector Berlioz, Liszt became infatuated with Johann Goethe’s telling of the Faust legend. As you may remember from last season, Goethe based his story on several semi-historic characters. Faust is an alchemist and a philosopher who, in old age, regrets having spent his life buried in his studies. On the verge of suicide, he calls on the Devil for deliverance and, unfortunately, gets his wish in the form of a visitation from the demon Mephistopheles. In exchange for his soul, Mephistopheles promises Faust what he truly desires. He tempts the philosopher with a vision of the maiden Gretchen. Faust eagerly trades eternal damnation for the youthful vigor to pursue the young woman. As Mephistopheles corrupts Faust, Faust corrupts Gretchen and her life ends in tragedy and death — her one consolation being that she is allowed to enter heaven. Faust ultimately breaks from his evil bargain, but he leaves a wide swath of destruction along the way. The story of Faust enthralled Liszt’s Romantic contemporaries, especially Robert Schumann, Berlioz, and Charles Gounod. Liszt was contemplating his own musical depiction of Faust in 1839 when he wrote in his journal, “If I feel within me the strength of life, I will attempt a symphonic composition based on Dante, then another on Faust.” He did not progress beyond sketches, however, until he had settled in Weimar and participated in the production of several Faust musical events. Liszt finished a draft of his Faust Symphony in October, 1854. Liszt had an abiding interest in translating the written word into music. As Leon Botstein describes it: Liszt integrated Chopin’s expressive rhetoric of the intimate with Berlioz’s massive theatrical scale. Underlying this achievement was a startling refinement of the relationship of literary program to musical form. The use of program furthered a radical rethinking of musical time. Liszt fashioned a truly accessible strategy of musical communication that engaged the listener in precisely the sympathetic manner he had sought as a pianist, but now over an extended experience and on a grand scale. The solution included the compositional practices of simplified thematic transformation and a redefinition of how music works sequentially by employing repetition, digression, and elongation as instruments of recollection and recognition. Symbolism of meaning was attached to traditional rhetorical expectations in the form of mottos and interrelated gestures. In the Faust Symphony, however, Liszt is not translating the story, but instead is sketching the main characters. The symphony’s three movements, all of approximately the same length, are titled “Faust,” “Gretchen,” and “Mephistopheles.” There are stark differences between the male and female leads in this tragedy and Liszt capitalizes on them, creating marked contrasts between the first and second movements. The sketch of Mephistopheles provides a finale to the work. Liszt never gives the devil his own theme. The role of Mephistopheles is to confuse, to corrupt, and ultimately to destroy and to reap. We hear this action in the finale through parody of the Faust themes. We also hear Mephistopheles defeated. Faust is, of course, a complicated fellow. His main theme, stated by the cellos and violas at the very beginning of the symphony, is a sequence of augmented triads. More contemporary music theorists have made much of the chromaticism of this passage, labeling this theme as music’s first twelve-tone row. The theme does not function serially, though, so the piece should not be seen as a direct precursor to the music of Arnold Schoenberg and his disciples. It is, however, striking and memorable, and was used referentially by both Wagner and Gustav Mahler. With its triads stretching up while the passage is actually descending, the theme seems perfect for a philosopher with melancholic tendencies. Liszt also provides a range of other interrelated themes during the exposition of the first movement. In descriptive essays dating back to Liszt’s lifetime (and possibly either written by or influenced by the composer), these themes are generally given psychological descriptions and emotional weight (doubt, love, pride, etc.). The last of the five is a representation of Faust’s statement “Im Anfang war die Tat” (“In the beginning was the deed”). Experiencing the whole of the movement creates a wonderfully multi-faceted emotional portrait of the title character. Gretchen’s portrait in the second movement is much less conflicted. Liszt depicts the innocent maiden before she meets Faust and Mephistopheles. Her beautiful theme is spun out by the woodwinds before the strings join in. Liszt eventually adds the harp, creating entrancing timbres by using the harmonics of the instrument’s strings. While the female lead is given her due, she is not given any dramatic weight. The composer chooses not to delve into the emotional turmoil she experiences as she is ultimately destroyed through the course of the tragedy. This musical decision on Liszt’s part makes the second movement a lovely interlude between the dramatic opening and close. The finale’s portrait of Mephistopheles is particularly intriguing because it does not introduce any new thematic material. Having written static portraits of the two main (mortal) characters, Liszt uses his finale to put these characters in motion as driven by the perverting powers of Mephistopheles. The evil spirit in the drama is then portrayed through the actions of the real-world characters. Faust has made his pact with the devil and Mephistopheles seems to delight in ridiculing the philosopher. We hear parodies of both the main Faust theme (the augmented triads) and his heroic characteristics (heard at the end of the first movement). But although Mephistopheles can make Faust march to his drummer, Gretchen will not. Again, Liszt is not interested in telling Goethe’s story. If he had been, Liszt might have tried to introduce a variance on the Gretchen theme that would reflect something of the infanticide and madness of the plot, but Gretchen’s theme remains pure. In trying to communicate the philosophical moral of the drama, Liszt presents the corruptible soul of Faust in conflict with the incorruptible soul of Gretchen. This opposition’s ultimate outcome must be capped by a sung apotheosis. Liszt took the text from the final lines of the second part of Goethe’s Faust: All things transitory are but parable; Sung by a male chorus and tenor soloist, these lines underscore the Romantic faith in the Eternal Feminine and its role in the salvation of mankind. Ultimately, Mephistopheles is powerless when pitted against a good woman. Dedicated to Hector Berlioz, the Faust Symphony was first performed in a definitive version with the vocal parts in 1857 in Weimar. The power of the music demonstrates Liszt’s complete mastery of symphonic composition, as well as his visionary approach to form. He succeeds in musically bringing the characters to life. © 2008 Klayton Woodworth and Karen M. Woodworth
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