Faust Symphony

A Faust Symphony in three character pictures, often referred to simply as Faust Symphony, is the work of composer Franz Liszt. She is inspired by Goethe's drama Faust, and is one of the symphony form related Symphonic Poem; they were at the inauguration of the Goethe and Schiller Monument, Wieland monument as well as laying the foundation stone of the Carl -August- monument on September 5, 1857 premiered in Weimar, and is one of the most important works of the composer.

Although Liszt had begun earlier with the work on the piece - there are sketches for a Faust Symphony from the early 1840s - was the Faust Symphony mainly in the summer of 1854 in Weimar. The work has been revised in the following years, including was added to the final, the excerpts from Faust II sings (Chorus Mysticus ), also a tenor soloist, a men's choir.

The playing time of the symphony is about 65 to 70 minutes, it was for an orchestra with the occupation of three flutes (3rd also piccolo ), two oboes, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, Organ and Strings wrote; in the final step added tenor solo and male chorus.

Full Sequence

The work consists of three movements or character images which are the three main characters of Goethe's poetry:

Due to the programmatic Bezuges one can call the Faust Symphony as a tone poem for orchestra with choir. Similar to the model of the 9th Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, it bursts in the second version of the framework of a purely orchestral work.

Set Overview

Fist

The broad set - it takes approximately 30 minutes - bears characteristics of a sonata form. The slow introduction issuing strings motif with ascending Dreitongruppen includes all 12 notes of the octave, and also provides material for the thematic events of another set course in which three distinct themes appear: An eventful in C minor, a cantabile in E major and a solemn in E Major. This sentence can be seen as a synthesis of the whole symphony, which also explains its length, many of its themes and motifs are altered in various ways and transformed, taken up again in the course of composition.

Gretchen

The slow middle movement is in A flat major, and is a character study that takes a narrative history: After the introduction by flutes and clarinets hear a simple oboe melody, accompanied by delicate figurations of the solo viola, which expresses Gretchen's virginity. A dialogue between the clarinets and violins describes how she naive, in a game of " He loves me, he loves me not ", the leaves of a flower plucked. Gretchen is obsessed with Faust; you can hear how Faust's theme increasingly flowing into the music, until finally his form and Gretchen topic a passionate love duet.

Mephistopheles

This part of the work, a scherzo, caricatured the themes of the first movement. The beginning, Allegro vivace ironico, reminiscent of the Witches' Sabbath from Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, perhaps a tribute to this, since Liszt through him became acquainted with the work of Goethe. Mephistopheles, the devil, the spirit of negation, unable even to create topics, Faust takes up themes from the first set and distorts them in an ironic, diabolical way. This shows Liszt's talent to thematic transformation in full size. The music reaches places by heavy use of chromaticism to the brink of atonality. A modified version of Faust's second and third topic then creates an " infernal " fugue. Mephistopheles is, however, powerless against Gretchen's innocence, so her subject remains undistorted and supplanting even the spirit of negation towards the end of the work. In today's mostly played second version heard at the end of the solemn chorus mysticus. The male choir sings the following lines from Goethe's Faust:

All things transitory If only a parable; The Inadequate, Here 's is event; The indescribable, Here 's is done; The Eternal Feminine Draws us.

A tenor is heard now about the murmur of the chorus and sings the last two lines, the power of forgiveness through the Eternal Feminine imploringly. The symphonic poem ends in glorious finale of the choir and orchestra, supported by sustained chords of the organ.