A Faust Symphony (after Goethe)

Faust

Gretchen

Mephistopheles

Liszt first encountered the Faust legend when - on the day before the first performance of the Symphonie fantastique in 1830 - Berlioz introduced him to Goethe’s Faust in the French translation by Gérard de Nerval. From then on he was hooked. He made various sketches on the Faust subject in the 1840s but it wasn’t until he was stimulated by Berlioz again, this time by way of a performance of The Damnation of Faust in 1852, that he seriously applied himself to his Faust-Symphony. Although a first, purely orchestral version in three movements was written in 1854 there was no public performance of the work until after the original orchestration had been revised and a choral finale added in 1857. When it was finally published (with a well deserved dedication to Hector Berlioz) it was in the four-movement form. The composer did, however, provide for an alternative, entirely orchestral version, leaving out the choral finale together with the transition to it and adding an emphatic closing gesture to the Mephistopheles movement to make a conclusive ending.

Both versions have their virtues. The four-movement version not only adds a finale to a symphony which would otherwise end with a scherzo but also, as Faust’s soul is redeemed in heaven, reflects Liszt’s developing aspirations towards higher things. At the same time, however, it compromises the integrity of the original concept, which was that it was to be a symphony of “character studies” based on the three main figures of Goethe’s Faust. It could also be argued that the third movement does, in fact, fulfil the redeeming function of the added finale, although in purely symbolic terms and without the quasi-religious overtones of the choral ending. Anyway, tonight’s performance offers us the opportunity to judge for ourselves the effectiveness of the work in its three-movement form. It is also an opportunity to hear a score which, while it looks back to Berlioz here and there, looks forwards with extraordinary clarity to Wagner and from there to Tchaikovsky and well beyond.

Faust

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Faust-Symphony is the opening theme on violas and cellos which, but for one repetition, would be a classic twelve-note row. It is scarcely less remarkable that its continuation in a rising phrase on second violins is based on the whole-tone scale. Somehow, in his efforts to illustrate the prescient thinking of his literary alter ego Liszt foresaw two of the most significant developments in 20th-century harmony.

Liszt’s Faust is more than a progressive thinker, however. He is a person vulnerable not only to the painful longing suggested by the falling seventh on a solo oboe and a solo bassoon on their first entries but also to the kind of melancholy Tchaikovsky would similarly define in a descending bassoon line in the Pathétique Symphony. After a change of tempo and a short but impressively sonorous treatment of the twelve-note theme on trumpets and trombones, he is then presented as a man of intense passion in a sustained passage of tempestuous string writing and an outspoken declaration on unison woodwind and lower strings. As these ideas are revisited and developed, two other prominent characteristics are introduced - Faust the lover, in a tender episode in E major with clarinet and horn expressing their amorous feelings for a solo viola, and Faust the hero in a grandiose march also in E major with a new, fanfare-like theme proclaimed by trumpets and trombones.

The march marks the end of a long and complex exposition. The development, which includes further examination of the twelve-note and whole-tone introduction, is short but dramatically eventful. Also comparatively short, the recapitulation begins with an even more intense version of the tempestuous string passage, repeats the love scene in E major and, more significantly, twice recalls the march theme - first as a chorale for trumpet and horns and than in full heroic splendour - both times in C major, the key the work is aiming for in the long term.

Gretchen

The slow movement of the Faust-Symphony is a portrait of Gretchen, the innocent girl Faust seduces, ruins and abandons but whose lasting love for him redeems his soul in the end. Introduced by a study in virginal counterpoint for flutes and clarinets, it features as its main theme one of the most captivating of all Liszt’s melodic inspirations, the innocent confession made by oboe to the accompaniment of another solo viola. The intimacy of the scene is preserved by the use of solo strings until - after a short exchange of “He loves me - He loves me not - He loves me” between woodwind and violins - the full body of strings takes up the melody.

A second, even more confiding theme is introduced by strings and repeated by woodwind before the object of Gretchen’s affections makes his first entry with a firmly masculine version of the already familiar Faust-the-lover motif (with falling seventh). His tender eloquence with another of his melodies on three solo cellos accompanied by triplet arpeggios on three flutes proves so effective that it leads straight into the climax of the construction, a passionate recall of love scene from the previous movement scored for full orchestra in paradoxically pianissimo colouring. The rest is development, reviewing more material from the Faust movement, and recapitulation, including a recall of the main theme on four violins but, with all passionate spent, excluding the love scene.

Mephistopheles

Mephistopheles - the devil figure to whom Faust sells his soul and who is finally cheated out of it by Gretchen’s undying love - is described by Goethe as “the spirit who always denies.” He is a negative force, the opposite pole of Faust and his positive ambitions. So Liszt’s inspired solution to the problem of depicting his character in musical terms was to make Mephistopheles a parody of the opening Faust movement, using the same themes but treating them derisively in what amounts to an extended and wickedly witty scherzo. Beginning fiendishly on cellos and basses like the last movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, it tries out parody versions of several Faust themes, tricking them out with impish grace notes, and eventually settles on on the tempestuous one, driving it to a brilliant A major climax. Mephisto is also much taken by the Faust-the-lover theme, which he transforms into a vigorous fugue subject. Next, he has a laugh at Faust the hero, reintroducing the relevant theme in the E major in which it first appeared but with giggling figuration on woodwind and strings. The twelve-note theme makes an entry on pizzicato violas set against eerie Tarnhelm-like harmonies on stopped horns.

Gretchen, on the other hand, is beyond Mephisto’s powers of parody. Her melodious intervention - on oboe, as before, but with the support of other woodwind and the lyrical approval of a solo horn - changes the course of the movement. In the recapitulation that follows Faust the hero is reintroduced in F sharp major but then in the long-desired C major, suggesting perhaps that he has won. Certainly, the work ends not with a negative display of Mephistophelean malevolence but with a magical transformation indicating, as a solo horn confirms, that Gretchen’s intervention has secured a positive triumph.

Gerald Larner© 2004