Franz Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No. 1 | Khatia Buniatishvili (Verbier 2011)

Pure piano virtuosity: Khatia Buniatishvili plays Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (S. 514) by Franz Liszt. The concert took place at the Verbier Festival on July 26. 2011.

Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886), who was himself a great piano virtuoso, composed several top-class bravura pieces for piano, including the four Mephisto Waltzes. The Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (1856 - 61) is the most famous of the four piano waltzes and remains one of the most frequently performed virtuoso pieces by the Austro-Hungarian composer.

The first Mephisto waltz is subtitled ‚Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke‘ (The Dance in the Village Inn) and is a typical example of program music. However, the literary template for the program around the Mephisto figure does not come from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's famous Faust tragedy but from the verse epic "Faust. Ein Gedicht" by the Austrian writer Nikolaus Lenau (1802 - 1850). In the episode The Dance, Faust and Mephisto enter a village tavern. There Mephisto grabs a musician's violin, tunes the instrument and plays a wild dance on it – while Faust disappears into the forest with a harlot. Franz Liszt transfers this scene to his piano waltz in rich detail. At the beginning, you can hear the violin's voices as empty fifths, then the infernal dance and finally the song of a nightingale in the forest. The following musically condensed passage has even been interpreted as the first time a sexual act was set directly to music.

Liszt dedicated the Mephisto Waltz to his famous piano pupil Karl Tausig and later rewrote it to create an orchestral version. Nevertheless, the virtuoso piano piece has remained a concert favourite. Khatia Buniatishvili plays the Mephisto Waltz No. 1 full of drama and sensuality – earning much applause and cheers.

As a child, pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, born in 1987 in Tblisi, Georgia, was considered a wunderkind. She began to play the piano at the age of three and gave her first concert with the Tblisi concert orchestra at the age of six. International performances followed when she was ten. In 2008, she gave her US debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Since then, Buniatishvili has been regularly invited to many high-profile festivals and has given concerts in the world’s most renowned concert halls, for instance at Vienna’s Musikverein, at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and at the Berlin Philharmonic. She has won the highly respected Echo Classic Award twice.

The Verbier Festival is one of the most prestigious classical music events in the world. The quality of the participating artists as well as the originality of the programs have established the festival as a highlight of the music season. It takes place for two weeks in late July and early August in the mountain resort of Verbier, in Switzerland.

© Idéale Audience

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