Devilish Deeds: A Fast Guide to Faust

Or, how to keep seven different versions of the same story straight.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

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The Devil you say! Rene Pape as Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust.
Photo by Catherine Ashmore for the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

"Faust by Christopher Marlowe. Faust by Goethe. Faust by Gounod, Faust by Hector Berlioz. I tell you, anyone who touches this idea has turned it into a gold mine."--Jeffrey Cordova in The Band Wagon. (In the film, his attempt to turn a Broadway show into a modern-day production of Faust turns out to be a dreadful box-office bomb.)

When you start getting interested in classical music, it is overwhelming how many composers set versions of Faust. The story of the German scholar who sells his soul to a representative of the power of darkness in an effort to regain his youth and find love has universal human resonance. The following is a mercifully brief and incomplete guide to different versions of Faust with a focus on those that incorporate music drama and voice into re-telling the story. (That's to get me off the hook for not mentioning the "Faust Symphonies" by Liszt and Wagner!) With that, let's dive into the depths of hell for seven versions of Faust...by seven different composers.

Concert Review: He Bows For No Man

Violinist Leonidas Kavakos conducts the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The violinist Leonidas Kavakos led the New York Philharmonic on Friday morning.
Photo from the artist's website.

The New York Philharmonic returned to Lincoln Center this week, with a program of Bach, Busoni and Schumann. That’s fairly standard, except this brace of concerts under the direction of the program's principal soloist: the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos. Mr. Kavakos is the orchestra's 2016 Artist in Residence, an acclaimed soloist and a frequent visitor to the stage of David Geffen Hall. For part of Friday’s 11am matinee concert, he traded his vintage violin and bow for the more traditional little white baton.

Concert Review: Taking Twin Peaks (by strategy)

Marc-André Hamelin returns to Carnegie Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Marc-André Hamelin grabs a slice of the piano.
Photo © Marc-André Hamelin courtesy Hemsing Associates.

When Canadian virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin visits Carnegie Hall, he usually plays downstairs in the sleek subterranean confines of Zankel Hall. However, Wednesday night's concert was on the big stage of Stern Auditorium. He offered a carefully curated program that explored many aspects of his art, including composition. Each half started simply and increased in difficulty, climaxing in works by Ravel and Liszt. 

The Superconductor Interview: A Taste for Complexity

A pianist in motion: Marc-André Hamelin.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Marc-André Hamelin.
Photo by Sim Cannety Clarke © 2014 Hemsing Associates.

Among piano virtuosos, Marc-André Hamelin stands apart. The Canadian pianist and composer is known for his relentless exploration of the most challenging repertory of the instrument, bringing "lost" composers from the 19th century back into the public eye.

In New York to make his first subscription appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Hamelin graciously agreed to an interview while hurtling through the steel canyons of Manhattan in the back of a taxi. In these concerts, he is playing Cesar Franck's Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra a work that used to be frequently heard but is now regarded as an antique.

Concert Review: The Godzilla Concerto

Spring For Music continues, with Marc-Andre Hamelin playing Busoni.
by Paul Pelkonen

If the Busoni concerto were a Japanese movie monster, this is who it would be.
Image of Godzilla (Gojira) © 1954 Toho Studios. Character of Godzilla is the property of Toho Studios.

The Spring For Music festival reached its midway point on Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall. Since the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra travelled the shortest distance to participate in this week of modern music, it was fitting that they chose the toughest program on the schedule: Nocturnal by Edgar Varese, Kurt Weill's obscure Symphony No. 1 (Berliner), and Ferruccio Busoni's gigantic Piano Concerto. The concert was music director Jacques Lacombe's Carnegie Hall debut

Among German composers of the early 20th century, Busoni (a German, despite the Italian name) is looked at as something of an evolutionary dead end, with few followers of his footsteps or much interest in his difficult ideas of a new musical language. With this concert, Mr. Lacombe sought to disprove that thesis: programming the Concerto with works by his students Kurt Weill and Edgar Varèse, composers who took very different musical paths.

Concert Review: The Beast-master

A Faustian afternoon with the American Symphony Orchestra 

"I once conducted a concerto THIS big." Leon Botstein leading the American Symphony Orchestra.
Photo © 2009 The American Symphony Orchestra.

Sunday's matinee concert at Carnegie Hall featured Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra doing what they do best: fearlessly leading works that you don't get to hear too often. This program paired Ferruccio Busoni's unweildy five-movement Piano Concerto with Liszt's Faust Symphony, an impressionistic setting of Goethe's poem. In an introductory program note, Dr. Botstein explained the connection, in that he saw Busoni as the logical spiritual heir to Liszt.

Busoni's lone piano concerto has never caught on with pianists or audiences. Pianists don't like playing it. Its five movements last well over an hour. The parts are both difficult and not flashy, as the composer smoothly integrated the instrument into the orchestra rather than setting it against the other instruments. It is also (to my knowledge) the only piano concerto that features a choral part at the end, which may upstage the soloist. The work seems to confound pianists, conductors, and worst of all, music critics.

Soloist Piers Lane was bold in his interpretation of this fearsome beast of a concerto. After restating the bold opening theme against a quieted orchestra, he dove into the violin-like arpeggios, racing up and down the keys and weaving sonic threads into the rich orchestral fabric. The next two movements were Italianate in character, with a steady, tolling figure in the left hand that recalls the bells from Wagner's Parsifal and warm, lyric tones from the massive orchestra.

The fourth movement is the heart of the beast, a challenge from this virtuoso composer to any would-be soloist. In this difficult Tarantella (another Italian idea from this German composer) Mr. Lane rattled off the staccato passages in impressive fashion, making both hands dance above the keys. The final chorus, sung by the men of the Collegiate Chorale, incorporated smoothly into the work's overall sound, ending with a last series of keyboard flourishes that recalled the opening movement.

Although it is only three movements, Liszt's Faust Symphony is as long as the Busoni concerto. Rather than retelling the familiar story of a medieval scholar who trades his soul for eternal youth, the work's three tone-poem like movements explore the rich inner life of Faust in the first movement and his romantic obsession with the fair Gretchen in the second. Mephistopheles is the subject of the third, which is basically a series of twisted minor-key variations on the opening. The idea is that Old Scratch is not some daemonic entity, but a dark reflection of Faust's own immortal, immoral soul.

Dr. Botstein whipped up a devilish fury in the opening Faust movement. He was helped by the ASO, which sounded like a different orchestra when playing music that actually inspires powerful, lucid music-making. The balance of forces was a little off, with the heavyweights in the brass section drowning out the strings when the main theme came roaring out of the trumpets. The second movement was better, as the violins stretched out in the long exploration of Gretchen's character.

The final Mephistopheles movement had some of the same themes as the opener, and some of the same balance problems. Still, this was a compelling argument that needs to be made: that Franz Liszt was a skilled all-around composer and not just a stunt bunny at the piano. At the close of the last movement, the chorus returned for the revised ending of the work, a setting (with the Collegiate Chorale and tenor soloist Ryan McPherson) of the Chorus Mysticus from the second part of Goethe's epic poem. Nothing exceeds like Romantic excess.

Unfinished Business: Five Operas Left Incomplete

Modest Mussorgsky, painted by Vadim Repin in his last years.

Just what it sounds like. All five of these operas were left unfinished due to the untimely deaths of their composers. Happily for us musicological types, they were later completed and premiered in full versions, providing endless grist for lengthy caffeine-and-alcohol fueled arguments in the cafés and pubs around Lincoln Center--if we could afford to go to them.

Modest Mussorgsky: Khovanschina
completed by: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky (orchestration)

Mussorgsky's grand drama of Russian politics (the title translates as "The Khovansky Affair") deals with the rise of Peter the Great and the destruction of all those opposed to the new Tsar. Working from historical documents, he wrote the five-act libretto but had only begun the orchestration when he died (from complications due to alcoholism) at the age of 42.

His friend and fellow composer Rimsky-Korsakov finished the first version of the opera, although his version somehow manages an upbeat ending. Igor Stravinsky also took a crack at the score, but from his version, only Act V has survived. (It can be heard on the Abbado recording of the score, pictured at right.) Most opera houses (including the Met and the Kirov) use the Shostakovich orchestration, which is fairly close to Mussorgsky' gloomy conception.

Jacques Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffman
completed by: Ernest Giraud, Fritz Oeser, Michael Kaye, Jean-Christophe Keck, and others.

This is the one "serious" opera from France's leading composer of operetta and light comedies. Hoffman is a cyclical story dealing with the titular poet being thwarted repeatedly by four "evil geniuses" as he pursues his ideal woman. Francois Giraud completed the opera following Offenbach's death, but shortened the "Giulietta" act--which happens to be the opera's climax.

Through the years, sopranos have pushed for the order of acts to be altered, so they can sing the "Antonia" act (with its spectacular death scene) last. This makes nonsense of the plot. Most recordings of this opera feature different performing versions, bastardizations, and alternate endings. In the 20th century, a number of musicologists, including Michael Kaye and Fritz Oeser published different complete versions of the score.

Feruccio Busoni: Doktor Faust
completed by: Philipp Jarnach, later by Anthony Beaumont

This version of Faust by the most Faustian of composers was Busoni's magnum opus. This Italian-born German composer skipped Goethe's version of the story and went directly to the source of the Faust legend, medieval German puppet plays that told the story of a man selling his soul to the devil. Unusually, this version of the story casts a baritone as Faust and a tenor as Mephistopheles.

Busoni worked frantically to finish the opera, but died (from a kidney disease) before he could complete the final act, when Faust's soul is redeemed. Composer Philipp Jarnach's completed version is the repertory standard, although a new completion by Anthony Beaumont is based on Busoni's own sketches for the finale. The Kent Nagano recording of the opera (on Erato) includes both endings.

Giacomo Puccini: Turandot
completed by: Franco Alfano, later by Luciano Berio

Probably the most famous "incomplete" opera on this list. Puccini died in 1924, following complications from surgery to remove his throat cancer before he could complete the last act of Turandot. His final opera is a tale of mythic China in which a mysterious Unknown Prince seeks to melt the heart of the titular Princess before she has his head cut off.

Unfortunately, the composer died before he could write the music in which Turandot's heart melts. In 1926, Puccini's publishers hired composer Franco Alfano to finish the job. At the opera's premiere, Toscanini stopped conducting at the moment where Puccini stopped working and explained "Here, the maestro laid down his pen." The following night, Alfano's completion was performed. Today, most opera houses cut the Alfano music as short as possible. As a result, this grand, complex mythic tale has one of the most abrupt "quick endings" of any opera.

Alban Berg: Lulu
completed by: Friedrich Cerha

Berg died before he could finish the last act of Lulu his opera that explores the power of destruction through seduction. In his original conception, Lulu would sink into prostitution, and would be finally slaughtered by Jack the Ripper. When Berg died, his widow Helene approached Arnold Schoenberg to finish the opera. When he declined, she would not allow anyone else to work on Berg's sketches. As a result, Lulu was premiered in 1937 as a two-act torso. Helene Berg died in 1976. In 1979, Friedrich Cerha completed the opera. The full three-act Lulu was premiered by conductor Pierre Boulez, and proved to be a huge critical success . And yes, these performances are available on CD.

Piano Pleasures: John Ogdon and the Busoni Concerto

Ferruccio Busoni. From the Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection

Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) was a titan of the early 20th century. He stands at a crossroads: the end of Romanticism and the start of modern neo-Classicism. Italian-born but German-trained, Busoni was a virtuoso composer/pianist, armed with a colossal technique forged in the fiery furnaces of Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. His music is often complex to the point of obtusity, necessitating repeated listens to assimilate everything this Faustian artist was trying to say.


There are some big piano concertos in the concert repertory. But the Busoni work, like its creator, was a real original-- a five-movement megatherium lasting an hour and ten minutes. Busoni required a huge orchestra, a nimble soloist, and even a male chorus, in the final movement. This last had never been done in a piano concerto. When Busoni fell out of fashion following his death, the concerto went with him. It was long seen as a white elephant, a work whose very complexity defied performance. Worst of all, its solo part is hellishly difficult, but not flashy, Virtuoso players still avoid it today.

John Ogdon (1937-1989) was a titan among pianists. Throughout his erratic career, this ebullient virtuoso specialized in "unplayable" composers like Scriabin, Sorabji, Alkan and of course, Busoni. He played with a mix of delicate filigree and elemental power, and was ideally suited to champion the composer's lone piano concerto. Ogdon recorded this work at Abbey Road Studios in June of 1967 studios. It was an exciting session. Pink Floyd occupied one recording studio, working on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Ogdon and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra had to face a series of musical challenges. Not the least was having the session's conductor, Daniell Revenaugh, "temporarily borrowed" by Paul McCartney to complete orchestral parts on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

John Ogdon recording at Abbey Road Studios, 1967.
© 2007 The John Ogdon Foundation

In the middle of all this psychedelic activity, Ogdon, Revenaugh and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra worked their own kind of magic. Ogdon skates through the first four movements with jaw-dropping ease. He plays with power and restraint, working with and not against the orchestra, blending into the thick contrapuntal textures before soaring above the orchestra in a burst of virtuoso fireworks. Revenaugh (who made no other major commercial recordings as a conductor) leads the huge score in a stirring, confident performance. The wordless choral finale (sung by the male voices of the John Alldis Choir) is a stunning final effect.

Happily, this recording is still in the EMI catalogue. It is available as a stand-alone piece on a single budget disc. Better yet, the Ogden recording was reissued in 1998 as part of a two-CD set, Vol. 72 in the Great Pianists of the 20th Century . (This is a series of 100 two-disc DigiPaks celebrating the importance of piano music. Mostly, it's pretty good.) Here, the Busoni Concerto is accompanied by the Variations and Fugue on Chopin's Prelude in c minor, a playful, yet technically challenging work. Recorded in 1960, its inclusion here proves to be an entertaining prelude to the Concerto itself. The set also includes an interesting performance of the Alkan Concerto pour piano seul along with works by Scriabin and Rachmaninoff.