"Liszt Mephisto Waltz No 1" genre: Piano
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	Scintillating live performance of this most diabolical and fiendishly difficult work. 1987 Melbourne Concert Hall.
	MP3.com CD: Dimitris Sgouros Plays Liszt - buy it! Credits: Dimitris Sgouros (pianist)
	Story Behind the Song The overwhelming impact of Liszt's concert performances was experienced by all who heard him, from the most sensitive and high-minded critics like Robert Schumann to the ladies who (so the story goes) used to wrestle in the aisles for his discarded cigar butts. There are numerous contemporary accounts of his playing, and they are fascinating glimpses of a musical performer who was the sensation of Europe and who invented a new form of concert to accommodate his talent: the public "recital" devoted to a single performer on a single instrument. Throughout his life Liszt was drawn between the opposing attractions of sanctity and the flesh, and his music is frequently inspired by such themes as the Inferno, Redemption and Beatitude. Among his literary influences were Dante, Goethe and Byron, whose Faustian heroes inspired some of his finest music. It was inevitable that Liszt should be attracted to the legend of Faust, especially as recounted in the poetry of his fellow Hungarian expatriate Nikolaus Lenau. The Mephisto Waltz is based on a scene from Lenau's poem "The Dance at the Village Inn", in which Faust, accompanied by Mephistopheles, in his endless search after new pleasures, arrives at a village inn during a wedding celebration. Faust is attracted by the beauty of the young bride, and demands that Mephistopheles deliver her to him. Old Nick snatches a violin in his horny hand, tunes the instrument with a series of violent open fifths and in a few moments the whole party, irresistibly attracted by the languorous and seductive melodies evoked by the unearthly visitor, joins in the whirl, which rapidly becomes a furious orgy. Faust and the beautiful country girl dance together into "a roaring sea of lust" At the height of the dance, however, the notes of a nightingale are heard from a neighbouring wood. Moved by the tenderness and sweetness of the bird's song the dancers stop and listen. Mephistopheles, realizing that his power is broken, catches Faust in his arms and vanishes with him.

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