Liszt: a Faust Symphony

[Barbirollians]

Is this a rather underrated work ? I was interested by Suzy Klein’s comments in the recently repeated Revolution and Romance season on BBC4 and that led me to Tom Service’s Guardian article on the piece.I only ever had it on cassette with Beecham conducting but have been really rather impressed by it in Bernstein’s DG account which arrived at the weekend.

[HighlandDougie]

Is this a rather underrated work ? I was interested by Suzy Klein’s comments in the recently repeated Revolution and Romance season on BBC4 and that led me to Tom Service’s Guardian article on the piece.I only ever had it on cassette with Beecham conducting but have been really rather impressed by it in Bernstein’s DG account which arrived at the weekend.

As an adjunct to the Bernstein, I think that this recording by Martin Haselböck warrants a listen:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liszt-Symphony-Orchester-Wiener-Akademie/dp/B01MQYMUWD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=liszt+faust+symphony+haselbock&qid=1621269608&s=music&sr=1-1

Really well played and recorded - and grips one's attention from the start.

[Joseph K]

I'd say it's definitely an underrated work! I love the second movement especially, which evinces Liszt's ear for astonishing harmonic progressions - a quality it shares with the rest of the symphony, but it appears to me to be especially sublime in the second movement.

I don't have the Haselboeck (I have his recordings of all the symphonic poems and the Dante Symphony, but not Faust) but I can recommend this:

[Barbirollians]

I'd say it's definitely an underrated work! I love the second movement especially, which evinces Liszt's ear for astonishing harmonic progressions - a quality it shares with the rest of the symphony, but it appears to me to be especially sublime in the second movement.

I don't have the Haselboeck (I have his recordings of all the symphonic poems and the Dante Symphony, but not Faust) but I can recommend this:

I was interested to read that Liszt used all 12 notes in a chromatic scale in a tune in the first movement and that Wagner nicked quite a few things out of the work.

[Joseph K]

I was interested to read that Liszt used all 12 notes in a chromatic scale in a tune in the first movement and that Wagner nicked quite a few things out of the work.

[Roslynmuse]

A year or two back Imogen Cooper played a piano transcription of the Gretchen movement in a lunchtime concert - very effective. Constant Lambert was obsessed with the piece and quotes that same movement in (of all unlikely pieces) The Rio Grande. It's a while since I've listened to it - I must give it another airing.

It reminds me in places of what I think is my favourite of the symphonic poems, Orpheus. (And, for anyone who doesn't know it, the choral piece Via Crucis is a wonderful and underrated work - Matthew Best's recording with the Corydon Singers is quite exquisite).

[Bryn]

A year or two back Imogen Cooper played a piano transcription of the Gretchen movement in a lunchtime concert - very effective. Constant Lambert was obsessed with the piece and quotes that same movement in (of all unlikely pieces) The Rio Grande. It's a while since I've listened to it - I must give it another airing.

It reminds me in places of what I think is my favourite of the symphonic poems, Orpheus. (And, for anyone who doesn't know it, the choral piece Via Crucis is a wonderful and underrated work - Matthew Best's recording with the Corydon Singers is quite exquisite).

This:



was my introduction to Via Crucis. I am also rather taken with:

[Roslynmuse]

That second one looks interesting - piano transcription? I seem to remember Leslie Howard recorded that. Is the Satie (Happy birthday, Erik, by the way!) also just piano, without the vocal part? arranged by Cage?

[BBMmk2]

I have Bernstein’s and Masur’s. Both very good accounts.

[mathias broucek]

Is this a rather underrated work ?.

No! Slow movement is nice but first and third movements are very similar (for theological/literary rather than msuical reasons). And there's an unintentonally hilarious fugue...

On the other hand, the Chorus Mysticus was clearly the model Mahler had in mind for the end of the 8th so.....

[Bryn]

That second one looks interesting - piano transcription? I seem to remember Leslie Howard recorded that. Is the Satie (Happy birthday, Erik, by the way!) also just piano, without the vocal part? arranged by Cage?

Doubly so, i.e. 2 pianos.

[Roslynmuse]

Doubly so, i.e. 2 pianos.

[Bryn]

My first encounter with the Cage 2-piano arrangement of Satie's Socrate was via Riri Shimada's triple CD Satie album:

.

I later got to record a performance by John Tilbury and Tania Chen at the Warehouse, Waterloo.

[Barbirollians]

I have Bernstein’s and Masur’s. Both very good accounts.

Any recommendations for the Dante Symphony ? I don't have that and see that Barenboim , Sinopoli and Masur have all been recommended by Gramophone but in different order by different reviewers !

[vinteuil]

Any recommendations for the Dante Symphony ? I don't have that and see that Barenboim , Sinopoli and Masur have all been recommended by Gramophone but in different order by different reviewers !

... I think Haselbock is very good -

: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MQYMUWD

EDIT : Faust was not Dante. See #18 infra


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