Faust: Jewel Song

The earliest waltz by a French composer of any reputation is the second movement, Un Bal, of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique - which was completed as early as 1830, seven years before Johann I took his orchestra to Paris. So it is very likely that the inspiration came not directly from Vienna but by way of Dresden where Carl Maria von Weber wrote his Invitation to the Dance - a brilliant and very remarkable anticipation of the concert waltz as developed, perhaps under Weber’s influence, by the Strauss family. Anyway, by 1859, when Gounod came to write his Faust opera the waltz was firmly established in the affections of the Parisian public, as the composer duly acknowledged by including a large-scale waltz finale to the second act and a waltz-time aria for his heroine in the third act. Marguerite has just discovered a case of jewels left for her by Faust, as an item in his seduction strategy, and is excited by what she finds there. Bearing in mind the association of the waltz with social glitter, frivolity and easy virtue, it is not surprising that she should be tempted to celebrate her acquisition in a waltz song of exceptional vocal brilliance and rhythmic vivacity.