Mephisto Waltz no. 1 S.514

Fascinated by the figure of Faust, Liszt drew his inspiration from Goethe’s play for his Faust Symphony, then from the dramatic poem by Nikolaus Lenau (1835) for his Two Episodes from Lenau’s Faust for orchestra (around 1856-1861). The second movement, “The Dance in the Village Inn”, portrays the meeting between Faust and Hannchen, who become Mephisto’s puppets. Liszt immediately adapted this work for piano and the Mephisto Waltz no.1 was born. The diabolical figure calls the tune in this piece: from the opening bars, he scrapes away at his violin in a flurry of open fifths, creating some harsh dissonances, then whirls the listener away in a giddy dance. A second waltz, Un poco meno mosso, espressivo amoroso, accompagnies the scene in which Faust seduces Hannchen. But the Mephistophelian motifs soon chip away at the tender outpouring of love then drown it out (the orchestral version superimposes the two waltzes, which is impossible to transpose to the piano). The song of the nightingale and a reminder of the love scene precede the unbridled coda: the Devil is victorious, as in Lenau’s work, in which Faust is not redeemed, either by love or by faith. The writer (of Hungarian birth, like Liszt) makes the scholar a melancholy, bitter contemporary, whose impossible quest drives him to suicide. The Mephisto Waltz reveals the fascination for a devil all the more seductive and dangerous for being a virtuoso musician—and a Gypsy, to judge by his style of playing. In 1860, Liszt set Lenau’s poem Die drei Zigeuner: “The Three Gypsies”, Mephisto’s brothers, whose wanderings and contempt for life aroused feelings of nostalgia in this sedentary man.