Romantic Rivals and a Brotherhood at the Keyboard

About the Work

The First Mephisto Waltz originated as part of Two Episodes from Lenau’s Faust, written around 1860. The literary source is not Goethe’s Faust but the darker, more despairing verse drama by the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau, published in 1836.

Liszt’s program note, drawn directly from Lenau, describes the scene: A wedding feast is in progress at a village inn. Mephistopheles and Faust happen by, and the devil persuades Faust to enter. Mephistopheles snatches a violin from a lethargic fiddler and draws from it “indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains.” The villagers are whipped into an orgiastic frenzy. Faust seizes a beautiful peasant girl; they waltz out of the room, out of the inn, away into the forest. The violin fades into the distance. A nightingale sings.

What to listen for tonight:

• The devil’s fiddle: The work opens with stacked fifths that suggest a fiddle being tuned: Mephistopheles preparing his instrument. Then the sinister dance begins, diabolically seductive rather than overtly threatening.

• The waltz: Listen for the obsessive waltz rhythm that drives the villagers (and the music) into ever-greater abandon. The tempo and intensity build relentlessly.

• The love scene: Yearning cello cantilenas represent Faust falling under the spell of the village beauty. The music becomes suddenly tender and seductive.

• The nightingale: As the couple slip away into the forest, flutes take up the nightingale’s song. The stars are still shining; innocence persists despite the evening’s devilry.

• The return: The dance music gradually resumes, building to a final virtuosic Presto.

About the Work

Mozart composed this concerto in 1779, shortly after returning from an extended trip to Paris, a journey that had begun with high hopes and ended in personal tragedy with the death of his mother. The work was most likely written for Wolfgang and Nannerl to perform together in Salzburg.

The concerto is scored for the two soloists with a modest orchestra of oboes, bassoons, horns, and strings. Years later Mozart played it in Vienna with his pupil Josepha Auernhammer, and in 1782 clarinets, trumpets and timpani were added to the score, though the authenticity of those additions is not beyond question.

Brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen bring their own sibling bond to this work tonight, performing music originally written for another brother-sister duo. The Jussen brothers’ uncanny synchronicity and intuitive dialogue may well mirror what Mozart experienced with Nannerl.

What to listen for tonight:

• First movement (Allegro): After a jaunty orchestral introduction the two pianos enter together, immediately establishing their equality. Listen for how the material is divided almost evenly between them, creating a stereophonic dialogue.

• Second movement (Andante): A slow, refined movement in B-flat major. The orchestra stays largely in the background, letting the soloists’ intimate conversation bloom.

• Third movement (Rondeau: Allegro): One of the finest examples of wit and humor in all Mozart. The tuneful rondo theme returns repeatedly, with rhythmic drive offset by moments of lyrical grace. The dialogue between the pianos becomes especially intense as fragmentary themes pass rapidly from one to the other.

About the Work

Schoenberg explained his reasons for orchestrating the quartet in characteristically blunt terms: “1. I like the piece. 2. It is seldom played. 3. It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved.”

The result is a lavish orchestration calling for a full late-Romantic orchestra including xylophone, glockenspiel and a battery of other percussion, colors Brahms himself never used. The arrangement has often been nicknamed “Brahms’s Fifth Symphony.” Klemperer conducted the first performance in Los Angeles in May 1938.

George Balanchine later choreographed a ballet to this version, the Brahms–Schoenberg Quartet. The orchestration brings out colors and voices that can easily be lost in the quartet texture: Schoenberg finally heard everything he had always wanted to hear.

Tonight’s performance places Brahms alongside Liszt, two composers who represented opposing factions in the aesthetic wars of the nineteenth century.

What to listen for tonight:

• First movement (Allegro): The passionate opening theme announces Brahms’s Romantic intensity from the first bar. Listen for the interplay between agitated, driven passages and moments of lyrical tenderness; the tension between these moods defines the movement.

• Second movement (Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo): Not the expected slow movement but a haunting, veiled Intermezzo in C minor. The central trio section brings brief warmth before the mysterious opening music returns.

• Third movement (Andante con moto): The true slow movement, noble and singing. Schoenberg’s orchestration reveals inner voices and harmonic shadings that can be obscured in the original chamber texture.

• Fourth movement (Rondo alla zingarese: Presto): The famous “Gypsy Rondo” finale, reflecting Brahms’s lifelong fascination with Hungarian folk music. This rousing, high-spirited music builds to an exhilarating conclusion, the moment where Schoenberg’s orchestration truly sounds like a Brahms Fifth Symphony. Listen for the fiery gypsy-style fiddling and the wild abandon of the coda.