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From: J. P. E. Harper-Scott <[log in to unmask]>
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Sent: Wed, 17 November, 2010 15:00:31
Subject: [MUSICOLOGY-ALL] CFP: Music in Goethe’s Faust: Goethe’s Faust in Music
****Forwarded message from Lorraine Byrne Bodley
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Music in Goethe’s Faust:
Goethe’s Faust in Music
http://music.nuim.ie/newsevents/conferences/goethesfaustinmusic
20-22 April 2012
Music Department and School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Culture
Keynote Speakers
Professor Nicholas Boyle
(Schroeder Professor of German, Magdalene College Cambridge)
Professor Thomas Bauman
(Professor of Musicology, Northwestern University, USA)
Professor Osman Durrani
(Professor of German, University of Kent)
CALL FOR PAPERS
The name ‘Faust’ and the adjective ‘faustian’ are as emblematic of the
supra-intellectual as they are of the tragic. Such concepts haunt German
cultural life and have prompted countless discussions in philosophy, literature,
the visual arts and music, especially in the second half of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Through this a broad trajectory can be traced from
Zelter’s colourful record of the first setting of Goethe’s Faust - composed by
prince and rehearsed by a royal cast in Berlin in 1816 - 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.
A theatrical work with the artistic virtuosity and moral gravity of Goethe’s
Faust need not be musically inclusive, yet Goethe sought out many burgeoning
musicians - Heinrich Schmieder, Carl Friedrich Zelter, Carl Eberwein and Prince
Anton Heinrich Radziwill – as possible composers of Faust. While Goethe longed
to have Faust set to music and considered only Mozart and perhaps Meyerbeer as
being equal to the task, by the end of his life he had abandoned hope that he
would live to witness a musical setting of his text. In Goethe’s mind, ‘the
awful and repulsive passages that must occasionally occur’ were ‘not in the
style of the time’. For Goethe, ‘the music should be like Don Juan in
character.’ Goethe’s connection of Faust and Don Juan is evident in their human
nature and tragic downfall and it is interesting that Hermann Reutter should
profile these figures in his opera, Don Juan and Faust (1950). Kierkegaard also
recognized their binding force and believed that: ‘Don Juan is the expression
for the daemonic characterized as the sensual and Faust is the expression of the
daemonic characterized as the spiritual’. For Goethe the daemonic was most
strongly manifest in music, and its irrational effect on the listener would
convey the central themes of his text.
Despite this and despite the numerous settings it has inspired, the centrality
of Faust I and II in German music theatre remain unexplored. 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 how the libretto emerged from a
wonderfully intricate web of musico-theatrical connections in texts: 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
Baroque Passions of Graun and Bach. This conference will re-examine the musical
origins of Goethe’s Faust and explore the musical dimensions of its legacy. It
will seek to uncover the musical furore caused by Goethe’s Faust and consider
why his polemical text was so resonant for the generations of composers that
succeeded him.
This conference seeks fresh perspectives on these issues. In particular, we
invite contributions on the following topics:
• 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;
• Contradictions in the biographical scholarship of Goethe’s engagement with
music; 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; Function and Meaning of Music
Theatre in Faust I and/or Faust II; 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.
and on the following repertoire:
• Prince Anton RADZIWILL, Compositionen zu Goethe’s Faust (1810-1835), die
erste Vertonung von Goethes Faust I;
• Ludwig van BEETHOVEN, ‘Aus Goethe’s Faust: Es war einmal ein König’,
op.75/3 (1809);
• Franz SCHUBERT, ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ (1814), ‘Szenen aus Goethes Faust’
(1814), ‘Der König von Thule’ (1816); ‘Gretchens Bitte’ (1817);
• Ludwig (Louis) SPOHR, Faust (1816); ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ (1809);
• Felix MENDELSSOHN, Scherzo from Octet in E flat major, op. 20, 1825,
‘Gretchen (Meine Ruh' ist hin)’, op.112;
• Hector BERLIOZ, Huit scènes de Faust (1829); La Damnation de Faust
(1845-46); ‘Le roi de Thulé’;
• Giuseppe VERDI, ‘Deh, pietoso, oh Addolorata’ (1838); ‘Perduta ho la pace’
from 6 Romanze (1838);
• Carl EBERWEIN, Faust I (1829); Faust II (1852);
• Richard WAGNER, Eine Faust Ouvertüre (1840). Sieben Kompositionen zu
Goethes Faust, op. 5 (1831, rev. 1832);
• Robert SCHUMANN, Szenen aus Goethes Faust (1853); ‘Der König von Thule’,
op. 75 (1849); ‘Lynceus des Türmer’ (1849);
• Franz LISZT, Eine Faust-Symphonie in drei Charakterbildern (1854-57)
‘Soldiers' Song from Goethe's Faust’; ‘Brander's Song: "Es lebt eine Rat’
(1857); ‘Angels' Chorus’; ‘The King of Thule: Es war ein König’ (1843);
Mephistos Lied: ‘Es war einmal ein König’ (1849);
• Charles GOUNOD, Faust (1859);
• Giacomo MEYERBEER, La jeunesse de Goethe (includes scenes from Faust)
(1862);
• Anton RUBINSTEIN, Faust. Ein musikalisches Characterbild, op. 68, (1864);
• Arrigo BOITO, Mefistofele (1867-68);
• Hugo WOLF, ‘Gretchen vor dem Andachtsbild der Mater Dolorosa’ (1878);
• Modest MUSSORGSKY, ‘Mephistopheles’ Song of the Flea’ (1879);
• Gustav MAHLER, Finale from Symphony No. 8 in E flat major (1906-07);
• Lili BOULANGER, Faust et Hélène (1913);
• Ferruccio BUSONI, ‘Lied des Mephistopheles aus Goethes Faust’ (1919),
Doctor Faust (1916-25);
• Hans PFITZNER, ‘Margaret's Prayer Before the Image of the Sorrowful
Mother’ (in Das dunkle Reich, 1929);
• Hermann Reutter, Doktor Johannes Faust (1936);
• Paul DESSAU, 7 Lieder zu Goethes Faust (1949), Faust I (1949), Urfaust
(1952);
• Hanns EISLER, Rhapsodie (1949);
• Niels Viggo BENTZON, Faust III (1961-62; 1964);
• Alfred Schnittke, Doktor Faust (1983); (For further suggestions of
settings, see accompanying document.)
Papers will last thirty minutes, followed by ten minutes of discussion time.
Proposals for individual papers should be no more than 300 words. Please also
send a short Curriculum Vitæ of no more than 150 words. The official languages
of the conference are English and German. Abstracts 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
[log in to unmask]
Professor Florian Krobb
Department of German,
National University of Ireland Maynooth Co. Kildare [log in to unmask]
Proposals will be selected by the end of June 2011; the full programme will be
announced by September 2011. The conference organisers plan to publish a
refereed volume of selected conference contributions.
****End of forwarded message****
______________________________________
Dr J. P. E. Harper-Scott
Senior Lecturer
Department of Music
Royal Holloway, University of London
http://web.me.com/jpehs/
______________________________________
