Mephisto Waltz No. 1

A Fiery Waltz

The fame Franz Liszt achieved as a pianist has somewhat overshadowed his considerable contributions to symphonic music. In 1848, weary of life as a travelling virtuoso, the Hungarian composer settled in Weimar as Kapellmeister to the city’s grand duke. This period of intense orchestral exploration gave rise to works such as the Faust Symphony, the Dante Symphony, Prometheus, and Les Préludes. Fascinated by the Faust myth, Liszt drew inspiration not only for his Faust Symphony, but also for his Sonata in B minor and the four Mephisto Waltzes. 

The first Mephisto Waltz, composed between 1859 and 1862, is based on an episode from Nicolas Lenau’s Faust (1836), subtitled “Dance at the Village Inn”. Liszt quotes Lenau’s text, which his music illustrates with drama, virtuosity, and sensuality: 

“There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by, and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the fiddle from the hands of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad, abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale warbles his love-laden song.” 

Liszt also created a solo piano version of the waltz. Fiendishly difficult, it quickly became a showpiece for virtuoso performers.