Mephisto Waltzes

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For the goth/death-rock band, see Mephisto Walz.

The Mephisto Waltzes are four virtuoso piano solos composed by Franz Liszt. Of the four, the first is the most popular and has been frequently performed in concert and recorded^{[citation needed]}. It was composed in 1856-1861, and Liszt made an orchestral version (as No.2 in the Zwei Episoden aus Lenaus Faust) immediately after the completion of the original piano solo. Liszt dedicated the piece to Carl Tausig, his favourite pupil (who died prematurely at the age of 29 in 1870). It is popularly called "the Mephisto Waltz," as if there were only one.

[edit] The Waltzes

The First Mephisto Waltz, Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke (The Dance in the Village Inn), was conceived as both, an orchestra and a piano work. Three versions, orchestral (S110/2, from Two episodes from Lenau's Faust), piano duet (S599/2, from Two episodes from Lenau's Faust) and piano solo, (S514), all date more or less from the same period (1859/60). A two piano arrangement followed later. The Waltz is a typical example of program music, taking for its program an episode from Faust, not by Goethe but by Nikolaus Lenau (1802-50). (The other Faust-related works of Liszt are mainly influenced by Goethe.)

The episode at the village inn, which Liszt chose, ("The Dance / Village Inn / Wedding. Music and Dance") is of a rather erotic nature: Faust and Mephistopheles as hunter enter an inn where a wedding party is being held. Mephistopheles takes a fiddle from one of the minstrels, tunes it (represented in the music by the 5ths build up at the start of the piece) and plays a frantic dance. The music slows for an amorous new waltz theme which intoxicates the village peasants. Even the "echoing walls" of the inn "lament, pale with jealousy, because they cannot join in the dancing." Faust takes advantage of this and dances with the bride, a black-eyed beauty (not "Gretchen" but "Hannchen"), and after some wooing, elopes into the woods with the young girl..., a nightingale sings a tune, and the music builds to an exciting climax when the pair is "swallowed up by the impetuous waves of amorous rapture." Before the climax of this "rapture" the sensual lyrical theme of the Waltz reappears, diabolically distorted, as a shockingly vulgar pop song. Music critics cite{{{author}}}, {{{title}}}, [[{{{publisher}}}]], [[{{{date}}}]]. the Waltz as the first representation of orgasm in classical music, a later example being Richard Wagner's Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde.

It was Liszt’s original intention to publish the Waltz simultaneously with another episode from Lenau, the Night Procession ("Der nächtliche Zug"), which was to precede the Waltz (in Lenau though this episode appears later than the dance in the village inn): "...The publication of the two Lenau's Faust episodes... I entrust to Schuberth's own judgement; as to whether the piano version or the score appears first, makes no difference to me; the only important thing is that both pieces should appear simultaneously, the Night Procession as No.1 and the Mephisto Waltz as No.2. There is naturally no thematic relationship between the two pieces; but they are related nonetheless by all the contrasts of emotions. A Mephisto of this kind may only arise from such a poodle!..." [from a letter of Liszt to Fr. Brendel, Rome, 29 August 1862]. Liszt’s request was not fulfilled and the two episodes were published separately.

The Second Mephisto Waltz followed the first by some 20 years. Its composition took place between 1878 and 1881. Liszt again orchestrated the piece right after the completion of the piano solo. The piece is dedicated to Camille Saint-Saëns..

The Third Mephisto Waltz takes the harmonic language even further. Composed in 1883, it features chords built up by fourths and there are numerous ominous passages with succession of descending minor triads whose roots are a semi-tone apart. Liszt made no orchestral version of the Third Waltz.

The Fourth Mephisto Waltz remained unfinished. Liszt worked on the piece in 1885. There is a version with the completed fast outer sections (without the incomplete slow middle section) that has been performed and recorded in recent years. Leslie Howard the acclaimed Australian pianist, who recorded all of Liszt's solo piano pieces (over 95 CDs) made a recording of the whole Waltz including the incomplete middle section that he assembled from Liszt's manuscript sources and completed in line with the composer's late style adding a minimum number of his own notes. It is available on Hyperion's "complete piano music of Liszt"-series. No orchestral version of this Waltz was completed by Liszt.

[edit] 1969 novel

In 1969, American author and Juilliard-trained pianist Fred Mustard Stewart published his first novel, The Mephisto Waltz, about a young writer whose body is possessed by an aging pianist. The book was made into a 1971 film starring Alan Alda.