http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006172/
http://www.panonthenet.com/news/2014/mar/niu-spring-concert-40th-anniv-3-27-2014.htm
Volume 38, Issue 3, 1 March 2015, Pages 193-218
Dancing to the devil's tune: Liszt's Mephisto Waltz and the encounter with virtuosity (Review)
Abstract
Despite its popularity with pianists, Liszt's
first Mephisto Waltz (pub. 1862) has been largely glossed over in
musicological studies. In this article, I reconsider the relationship
between the piano piece and the excerpt from Lenau's Faust (pub. 1836)
that inspired it, and I explore potential programmatic interpretations
of the rhetorical features and idiosyncratic structure of the music,
informed by knowledge of Liszt's
aesthetic stance around this period. This hermeneutic approach is
framed in terms of certain important sociocultural concerns of the time,
including the widespread fascination with the virtuoso as a daemonic
agent. The poetic excerpt tells of a crowd being roused to frenzy by the
playing of a diabolical instrumentalist, a process that the piece both
depicts and (in the act of performance) reenacts. This also links back
to Liszt's mercurial career as a
performer, during which period such scenes were commonplace. Written
long after he had ceased his tours as a virtuoso to concentrate on
composition, the Waltz may use Liszt's
own remembered experiences, but more importantly it is part of the
legacy whereby he hoped to ensure his own lasting place in the cultural
memory. © 2015 by the Regents of the University of California. All
rights reserved.
Author keywords
Daemonic; Drastic; Franz Liszt; Memory; Mephisto Waltz No. 1; Program music; Virtuosity
ISSN: 01482076Source Type: Journal
Original language: English
DOI: 10.1525/ncm.2015.38.3.193Document Type: Review
Publisher: University of California Press
