The Mephisto Polka (S. 217) is a piece of program music written in folk-dance style for solo piano by Franz Liszt in 1882–83. The work's program is the same as that of the same composer's four Mephisto Waltzes, written respectively in 1859–60, 1880–81, 1882 and 1885 and based on the legend of Faust, not by Goethe but by Nikolaus Lenau (1802–50). The following program note, which Liszt took from Lenau, appears in the printed score of the Mephisto Waltz No. 1:
There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by, and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the fiddle from the hands of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale warbles his love-laden song.[1]
The first recording of this piece was by France Clidat in her traversal of Liszt's works for Decca.[2]
The MephistoPolka (S. 217) is a piece of program music written in folk-dance style for solo piano by Franz Liszt in 1882–83. The work's program is the...
Associated with the Mephisto Waltzes is the MephistoPolka, which follows the same program as the other Mephisto works. Mephisto Waltz No. 1 Live 2017...
Liszt's practice, however, is more radical. An example of this is in the MephistoPolka, where the piece is simply deserted at the end, without explanation...
relationship to Mephisto, Faustus and Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel, and the pairings of minor characters (Boy and Dog, Boy and Girl, Dog Mephisto and Viper...
Epica The Black Halo Beethoven's Last Night The Black Rider Songs "MephistoPolka" (1859–1885) "Cross Road Blues" (1936) "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968)...
Epica The Black Halo Beethoven's Last Night The Black Rider Songs "MephistoPolka" (1859–1885) "Cross Road Blues" (1936) "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968)...
pf 1885 Piano, dance form 1st (complete) version of S.696 217 A317 MephistoPolka pf 1882–83 Piano, dance form exists in two versions 218 A119 Galop pf...
of premiere recordings of Liszt's works (Mephisto Waltzes Nos. 3 and 4, Valse oubliée No. 3, MephistoPolka, Mazurka brillante, two Caprices-Valses, two...
"Tales from the Vienna Woods", "Frühlingsstimmen", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best...
Johann Strauss II's Neue Pizzicato-Polka (English: New Pizzicato Polka), Op. 449, was composed in early 1892 for concerts in Hamburg under Eduard Strauss...
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