Cyprien Katsaris, piano.
• Liszt : 4 Mephisto Wal...
Score edition engraved by Imre Mező and Imre Sulyok - available from IMSLP for free.
0:00 - No. 1, S.514
The most popular of the series and, along with the third Waltz, most praised musically, the Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke: Erster Mephisto-Walzer ("The Dance in the Village Inn: First Mephisto-Waltz"), or the First Mephisto Waltz, is the second of two short works he wrote for orchestra under the title Zwei Episoden aus Lenaus Faust. While the work preceding it, Midnight Procession (Der nächtliche Zug), is rarely given (though both works have been recorded together), the waltz has been a concert favorite, with its passion, sensuality and dramatics generating an emotional impact.
11:09 - No. 2, S.515
The Second Mephisto Waltz, S.515, followed the first by some 20 years. Its composition took place between late 1880 and early 1881. Liszt wrote the orchestral version (S.111) first, then based both the piano solo (S.515) and four-hand (S.600) versions on it. The orchestral version was premiered in Budapest in 1881. After this performance Liszt extended the work and changed the ending radically. The printed music for all three versions is based on this revision and is dedicated to Camille Saint-Saëns.
22:12 - No. 3, S.215a and S.216
Composed in 1883, the Third Mephisto Waltz, S.216, takes the harmonic language even further, featuring chords built up by fourths with numerous passages of descending minor triads whose roots are a semitone apart. The chord on which these progressions are based, according to Alan Walker, "is difficult to explain in terms of traditional harmony. It is best regarded as a 'fourths' chord in its last inversion." Tonally, the music is pulled between F♯ major, D minor and D♯ minor. As in its predecessors, the Third Waltz has the devil dancing in triple time while other groups of three move past so quickly that a larger rhythm of four is established, and triple time is abandoned altogether in the dreamlike passage near the work's conclusion. Humphrey Searle, in his book The Music of Liszt, considers this piece to be one of Liszt's finest achievements.
This waltz bore no dedication initially. After French pianist Marie Jaëll played the work for the composer (who asked her to repeat certain passages over and over again), he made extensive changes to the work and dedicated it to her. Saint-Saëns, Jaëll's composition teacher at the Paris Conservatoire (who also dedicated his first piano concerto to her), commented about her interpretation of Liszt's works that "only one person in the world [besides Liszt] who can play Liszt-Marie Jaëll". Liszt made no orchestral version of the piece. However, British composer and arranger Gordon Jacob orchestrated this along with other late works of Liszt for the Sadlers Wells ballet Apparitions, a project conceived by composer Constant Lambert.
30:55 - No. 4, S.216b
The Fourth Mephisto Waltz, S.696, remained unfinished and was not published until 1955. Liszt worked on the piece in 1885. Like the second waltz, the fourth uses an introduction and coda which do not stick to the basic key. While the work is mainly in D, it begins and ends on a C♯. This, writes noted Australian Liszt scholar and pianist Leslie Howard, was an encouragement while working on his performing version to refer to the main material in the slow Andantino and to recapitulate a portion of the fast Allegro before Liszt's coda. Some critics do not consider this waltz as original as its predecessors and surmise that, had Liszt lived to complete it, he might have made considerable improvements. No orchestral version of this waltz was made by Liszt.
33:44 - Bagatelle sans tonalité, S.216a
Bagatelle sans tonalité ("Bagatelle without tonality", S.216a) is a piece for solo piano written by Franz Liszt in 1885. The manuscript bears the title "Fourth Mephisto Waltz" and may have been intended to replace the piece now known as the Fourth Mephisto Waltz when it appeared Liszt would not be able to finish it; the phrase Bagatelle ohne Tonart actually appears as a sub-title on the front-page of the manuscript.
The Bagatelle is a waltz in a typical sectioned dance form, with repeated sections given inventive variation. While this piece is not especially dissonant, it is extremely chromatic, becoming what Liszt's contemporary François-Joseph Fétis called "omnitonic" in that it lacks any definite feeling for a tonal center. Some critics have suggested, however, that the various underpinnings of the piece-in other words, the main bass notes and melodic elements-work together to imply an underlying tonality of D, which would link the Bagatelle in terms of tonality with the Fourth Mephisto Waltz.
© Wikipedia, footnotes are omitted.
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