Date of composition: 1857-1861
Duration: 12 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
First performed on 17 December 1890, conductor: Gustav Friedrich Kogel
Who would not think of Goethe when Faust and Mephisto are mentioned? Yet the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau dared, shortly after the death of the Weimar poet, to propose a counter-concept and presented his own Faust epic, which appeared in print in 1840. Franz Liszt, who had already premiered A Faust Symphony based on the Goethe dramas in 1857, also engaged with Lenau’s alternative interpretation between 1857 and 1861, drawing inspiration from it for two orchestral Faust Episodes for orchestra. The second of these is entitled “Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke” (The Dance at the Village Inn), but is equally well known as “First Mephisto Waltz”, as the simultaneously composed piano version is called.
The music vividly reflects the scene in question. Faust and Mephisto enter a country inn where a wedding is being celebrated. Mephisto borrows a violin from one of the musicians: in the opening bars, we hear him tuning the instrument before he launches into a wild dance. Meanwhile, Faust has spotted a beautiful woman and woos her with yearning cello cantilenas. He succeeds in drawing the woman out of the inn and into the forest: three flutes imitate the song of the nightingale. Yet things do not remain so mysterious and tranquil. Faust throws himself into the endeavour, seducing his victim with all the artistry at his command, musically speaking: with lascivious chromaticism, until everything culminates in sheer frenzy, an erotic delirium.