Mephisto Waltz No.1, S.514
Waltz · in A major
Franz Liszt 1811–1886
A major
Key
Waltz
Form
Allegro vivace
Tempo
Score
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Difficulty
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Themes & character
The Dance in the Village Inn·After Lenau's Faust·Devilish virtuosity·Tuning-up opening
At a glance
- Key
- A major
- Tempo / character
- Allegro vivace
- Form
- Waltz
About the piece
Composed between 1859 and 1862 and subtitled The Dance in the Village Inn, this is the first and most famous of Liszt's four Mephisto Waltzes. It follows an episode from Nikolaus Lenau's version of the Faust legend rather than Goethe's.
In the scene, Mephistopheles seizes a violin at a village wedding and plays a dance so intoxicating that the guests lose themselves in it while Faust seduces a dark-eyed girl. Liszt opens by stacking fifths to imitate a fiddle being tuned, and the piece grows steadily wilder from there.
The composer
Franz Liszt
1811–1886
Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic period. With a diverse body of work spanning more than six decades, he is considered to be one of the most prolific and influential composers of his era, and his piano works continue to be widely performed and recorded.
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