Background and Composition History
The French composer was inspired by a translation of Goethe's dramatic poem Faust and produced a musical work that, like the masterpiece it's based on, defies easy categorization. Conceived at various times as a free-form oratorio and as an opera (Berlioz ultimately called it a "légende dramatique") its travelogue form and cosmic perspective have made it an extreme challenge to stage as an opera. Berlioz himself was eager to see the work staged, but once he did, he conceded that the production techniques of his time were not up to the task of bringing the work to dramatic life. Most of the work's fame has come through concert performances.
Berlioz read Goethe's Faust Part One in 1828, in Gérard de Nerval's translation; "this marvelous book fascinated me from the first", he recalled in his Memoirs. "I could not put it down. I read it incessantly, at meals, in the theatre, in the street." He was so impressed that a suite entitled "Eight Scenes from Faust" became his Opus 1 (1829), though he later recalled all the copies of it he could find. He returned to the material in 1845, to make a larger work, with some additional text by Almire Gandonnière to Berlioz's specifications, that he first called a "concert opera", and as it expanded, finally a "dramatic legend".
He worked on the score during his concert tour of 1845, adding his own text for "Nature immense, impénétrable et fière"— Faust's climactic invocation of all nature— and incorporating the Rákóczi March, which had been a thunderous success at a concert in Pest, Hungary, 15 February 1846.
Read more about this topic: La Damnation De Faust
Famous quotes containing the words background and, background, composition and/or history:
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“When I think of God, when I think of him as existent, and when I believe him to be existent, my idea of him neither increases nor diminishes. But as it is certain there is a great difference betwixt the simple conception of the existence of an object, and the belief of it, and as this difference lies not in the parts or composition of the idea which we conceive; it follows, that it must lie in the manner in which we conceive it.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)