Background on Mephisto Waltz No. 1

[mike_lang]

Does anyone know where I can find some good background info. on the Liszt Mephisto Waltz?  I have to do a presentation on it in my theory class next week.

Thanks,
Michael

[alejo_90]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephisto_Waltz

Good Luck.

Alex

[invictus]

Its the first representation of an orgasm in musical history!!!!

[henrah]

Its the first representation of an orgasm in musical history!!!!

Really? The whole piece, or at a certain point? Tell tell tell!

[alejo_90]

lol Yes I found that It was the first and only piece to represent an orgasm musically !!
I think it is the part with the Chopin 10/1 like... I don't know another way to explain it since my english isn't very good, but it begins in 8:25 in a traditional 10:45 version. If the orgasm isn't represented on this part, then it must be represented on the ending !

Well, michael_langlois I hope it helped with your presentation.

Alex

[iumonito]

Its the first representation of an orgasm in musical history!!!!

Cough, cough,

I think you are off by thousands of years.

Even not counting African music, la ci darem la mano (Mozart, Don Giovanni) and Monteverdi's 7th book of madrigals are quite explicit, and Jacques Arcadelt's memorable the white and sweet swan depicts not one but a thousand orgasms.

Il bianco e dolce cigno cantando more,
Ed io, piangendo,
Giung'al fin del viver mio.
Stran'e diversa sorte,
Ch'ei more sconsolato,
Ed io moro beato.
Morte, che nel morire,
M'empie di gioia tutt'e di desire.
Se nel morire altro dolor non sento,
Di mille mort'il di sarei contendo.


...and saying it is the only one, well, go no further than Wagner's Tristan (Death by love, it doesn't get more explicit).

Reply to the original post.  Lenau's Faust.  Mephisto and Faust are at a village inn, Mephisto tunes his violin and starts playing a frantic dance, everybody starts dancing wildly and in the paroxism of it all Faust seduces Gretchen (Margret), a nightingale sings and Mephisto [thinks] he has sealed Faust's perdition.

You can see more here if one chapter of Lenau is too boring.  https://www.sfsymphony.com/templates/pgmnote.asp?nodeid=3674&callid=3607