Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege - Liszt: Faust-Symphony; Mephisto Waltz No. 1 - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]
Reviews coming soon
About this product
Few literary works exerted as strong an influence on European culture in the 19th century as Goethe's play Faust. While several important composers drew inspiration from it, Franz Liszt seems to have had a particularly close relationship with Goethe's masterpiece. He came up with the idea of a symphony 'in three characteristic pictures', each devoted to a key character in the play Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. Rather than telling the story of the play, Liszt composed a psychological exploration of these three main figures. He was also a pioneer in his use of leitmotifs, i.e. short musical ideas that underline a trait of character or evoke feelings, a process that his future son-in-law, Richard Wagner, would take even further in his operas.This recording presents the original, purely instrumental version of the Faust Symphony from 1854. This gigantic work is complemented by the first of the Mephisto Waltzes, inspired by Nikolaus Lenau's vision of the Faust myth. These two works offer two very different perspectives on Liszt's intense relationship with the character of Faust, and in particular with that of Mephistopheles, around whom many of his compositions are structured. They are key works for understanding Liszt's aesthetic project and the typical nineteenth-century tendency towards a combination of the arts.
Specifications
- GenreClassicalDescriptionFew literary works exerted as strong an influence on European culture in the 19th century as Goethe's play Faust. While several important composers drew inspiration from it, Franz Liszt seems to have had a particularly close relationship with Goethe's masterpiece. He came up with the idea of a symphony 'in three characteristic pictures', each devoted to a key character in the play Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. Rather than telling the story of the play, Liszt composed a psychological exploration of these three main figures. He was also a pioneer in his use of leitmotifs, i.e. short musical ideas that underline a trait of character or evoke feelings, a process that his future son-in-law, Richard Wagner, would take even further in his operas.This recording presents the original, purely instrumental version of the Faust Symphony from 1854. This gigantic work is complemented by the first of the Mephisto Waltzes, inspired by Nikolaus Lenau's vision of the Faust myth. These two works offer two very different perspectives on Liszt's intense relationship with the character of Faust, and in particular with that of Mephistopheles, around whom many of his compositions are structured. They are key works for understanding Liszt's aesthetic project and the typical nineteenth-century tendency towards a combination of the arts.ArtistOrchestre Philharmonique Royal de LiegeTitleLiszt: Faust-Symphony; Mephisto Waltz No. 1FormatSuper Audio CD (SACD)LabelBis
Reviews
This product doesn't have any reviews yet.
Compare similar products
![Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege - Liszt: Faust-Symphony; Mephisto Waltz No. 1 - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/0fe8732c-76e1-434d-957d-3e5c01d45987.jpg;maxHeight=422;maxWidth=264?format=webp)
Few literary works exerted as strong an influence on European culture in the 19th century as Goethe's play Faust. While several important composers drew inspiration from it, Franz Liszt seems to have had a particularly close relationship with Goethe's masterpiece. He came up with the idea of a symphony 'in three characteristic pictures', each devoted to a key character in the play Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. Rather than telling the story of the play, Liszt composed a psychological exploration of these three main figures. He was also a pioneer in his use of leitmotifs, i.e. short musical ideas that underline a trait of character or evoke feelings, a process that his future son-in-law, Richard Wagner, would take even further in his operas.This recording presents the original, purely instrumental version of the Faust Symphony from 1854. This gigantic work is complemented by the first of the Mephisto Waltzes, inspired by Nikolaus Lenau's vision of the Faust myth. These two works offer two very different perspectives on Liszt's intense relationship with the character of Faust, and in particular with that of Mephistopheles, around whom many of his compositions are structured. They are key works for understanding Liszt's aesthetic project and the typical nineteenth-century tendency towards a combination of the arts.
![Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege - Liszt: Dante Symphony - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/e2c49336-05c0-48e6-8a7f-2fd0026c38fb.jpg;maxHeight=422;maxWidth=264?format=webp)
Following their critically acclaimed recording of the Faust Symphony (BIS-2510), the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, conducted by Gergely Madaras and joined by the Choeur Symphonique de Namur, now presents Liszt's Dante Symphony-a work reflecting his profound engagement with Dante's Divine Comedy.Initially planned in three movements-Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso-the Dante Symphony was ultimately cast as two symphonic poems with a choral conclusion. The Inferno opens with a stern trombone theme beneath Dante's gate inscription, moves through lyrical episodes evoking Paolo and Francesca, and ends in demonic frenzy. The Purgatorio, serene and simple, contains a central fugue evoking souls striving toward paradise, leading without pause into the choral Magnificat. Liszt's treatment of tonality anticipates Mahler and Nielsen, while his use of the tritone and whole-tone scale confirms him as a composer ahead of his time. This recording also includes the symphony's original conclusion, later abandoned at Richard Wagner's insistence.The programme concludes with John Adams' orchestration of La Lugubre Gondola II, a visionary late work inspired by a funeral gondola procession on Venice's Grand Canal. Adams' arrangement honours the structural, stylistic, and poetic dimensions of Liszt's original, placing it's Romantic language within a modern soundscape.
![Various Artists - Romantic Piano - COMPACT DISCS [CD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/e963293d-bcd1-4638-be14-e9484b362e5d.jpg;maxHeight=422;maxWidth=264?format=webp)
Various Artists - Romantic Piano [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/14/1996
![Orchestre Philharmonique Royal De Liege Neschling - Transcriptions of Bach - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/ec7dc0a9-ef13-4e3f-b12d-939f66cb7e18.jpg;maxHeight=422;maxWidth=264?format=webp)
The success of Ottorino Respighi's 'Roman Trilogy' brought the composer international fame as an outstanding orchestrator. One side effect of this are the orchestral transcriptions gathered on this album all made in 1929-30 and commissioned by eminent conductors such as Arturo Toscanini and Serge Koussevitzky for their American orchestras. Respighi's wide-ranging musical tastes included an interest in early music which probably contributed to him taking on the task of transcribing organ works by Bach - or creating 'orchestral interpretations', as he himself called the results. Among the Bach works are the celebrated Passacaglia in C minor - which Stokowski had orchestrated just a few years earlier - as well as the Prelude and Fugue in D major. Both are given the full treatment by Respighi, with orchestral forces including strings, triple woodwind, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and piano four hands for the Prelude and Fugue. The score for the Passacaglia asks for even greater forces (including an organ); Respighi compared Bach's original to 'a cathedral built exclusively of sound' - a description equally valid for his own arrangement. The Passacaglia was a success for Toscanini in New York, possibly influencing Koussevitsky in Boston to place a commission of his own. For him and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Respighi transcribed five of Rachmaninov's etudes-Tableaux for solo piano. Although these are programmatic pieces, their subject matter had not been disclosed in the editions for piano, but the Russian composer revealed his inspiration to Respighi in order to help him 'find the appropriate colors'. With the present album, l'Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege and John Neschling bring us the fifth installment in a series that has been called 'the finest-ever survey of the composer's orchestral output un
Specs
Be the first to ask a question.
We’ll try to get your question answered within 24 hours by a Best Buy customer or brand representative.