Music in Goethe’s Faust: Goethe’s Faust in Musik
Call for Papers
20-22 April 2012
Department of Music and School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Culture,
National University of Ireland Maynooth
The name ‘Faust’ and the adjective ‘faustian’ are as emblematic of
intellectual endeavour as they are of the tragic experience. Such concepts
haunt German cultural life and have prompted countless discussions in
philosophy, literature, the visual arts and music, the latter especially in
the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A broad
trajectory can be traced from Zelter’s colourful record of the first
setting of Goethe’s Faust to Alfred Schnittke’s Faust opera of 1993.
Between these two realizations, a floodtide of musical interpretations of
Goethe’s Faust came into existence; these explore the theme of love, so
central to opera, and the concomitant themes of redemption for both
Gretchen and Faust.
Goethe longed to have Faust set to music; and while he considered only
Mozart and perhaps Meyerbeer as being equal to the task, he sought out many
other musicians (Heinrich Schmieder, Carl Friedrich Zelter, Carl Eberwein
and Prince Anton Heinrich Radziwill) as possible composers of Faust.
Despite this and despite the numerous settings Faust has subsequently
inspired, the centrality of Faust I and II in German music theatre remains
under-explored. Conversely, musical references influenced form and content
of Goethe's piece. In recent studies Hans Joachim Kreutzer (2003) has
observed that the musical rhetoric of Faust I and II is organic and central
to its form; and Tina Hartmann’s analysis of the musical material in Faust
(2004) traces the intricate web of musico-theatrical connections in the
text: Goethe’s concept of a world theatre in the prologue can be connected
to the baroque operatic tradition, for example, and the choral songs of the
Nacht scene to the Passions of Graun and Bach. This conference seeks to
re-examine the musical origins of Goethe’s Faust and to explore the musical
dimensions of its legacy. Possible areas of investigation could be:
Faust’s first appearance on the musical stage, Gesänge von Doktor Faust,
Singspiel in 4 Acts (1819) by Ignaz Walter and the reliance of the
librettist, C.A. Mämminger, on Goethe’s Faust: Ein Fragment (1790);
Musical realization of central themes in Goethe’s drama: Faust’s striving
for knowledge, the Mephisto pact; the seduction of Gretchen and death of
her mother; the music of redemption in Goethe’s Faust;
Problems in the reception of Goethe’s music theatre;
Interaction between Faust I and II and Goethe’s early works of
music theatre, and their position in European music-theatrical history;
Goethe’s musicalization of the Faust legend, the genesis of
musical structures in Faust I and Faust II and analytical discussion of
Faust I and II as libretti;
The function of the chorus in Faust I and/or Faust II;
Music in Faust I: ‘The sun proclaims its old devotion’ (Prologue in
Heaven); Angel’s Easter Chorus; the songs of the Gretchen tragedy (‘Der
König in Thule‘, ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, ‘Gretchens Bitte’ (Gretchen vor
der Mater Dolorosa/‘Ach neige, du Schmerzen reiche’), ‘Cathedral Scene’,
Prison Scene’); ‘Mephisto’s Song of the Flea’ and ‘Brander’s Song of the
Rat’ (Down in the cellar there lived a rat) in Auerbach’s Tavern; ‘The
Beggar’s Song’, ‘The Soldier’s Song’ and ‘The Peasant’s Song’ in Outside
the Town Wall; ‘A Walpurgis Night Dream. An Intermezzo’;
Music in Faust II: ‘Ariel’s Song’; ‘The Carnival Masque’;
Classical Walpurgis Night’; ‘Arcadia’; The Helena Act’ (‘Helena,
classic-romantic Phantasmagoria, Intermezzo to Faust); melodrama and
intermezzi in Act IV; the lieto fine, ‘Mountain Gorges’ including Lynkeus’
Tower Song (A watchman by calling/ Far-sighted by birth); Dr Marianus’s
‘Queen and Ruler of the World’ and ‘Chorus Mysticus’;
Text setting in musical realizations of Faust I and/or Faust II;
Settings of Faust as Opera, Oratorio, Symphonic Works (see
repertoire list below).
Proposals (no more than 300 words) for papers (in English or German) of 30
minutes duration should be sent to one of the following contact persons to
arrive no later than Friday, 20 May 2011:
Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley
Department of Music
National University of Ireland
Maynooth
Co. Kildare
Ireland
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Professor Florian Krobb
Department of German
National University of Ireland
Maynooth
Co. Kildare
Ireland
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Please also attach a brief biographical sketch (no more than 150 words).
Proposals will be selected by the end of June 2011; a provisional programme
will be available by September 2011. The conference organisers plan to
publish a volume of selected conference contributions.
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