Franz Liszt: A Faust Symphony & Mephisto Waltz No. 3 Staatskapelle Weimar & Kirill Karabits

• Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886): A Faust Symphony, S. 108:
• 1 Liszt: A Faust Symphony, S. 108: I. Faust 27:40
• 2 Liszt: A Faust Symphony, S. 108: II. Gretchen 18:00
• 3 Liszt: A Faust Symphony, S. 108: III. Mephistopheles 16:18
• 4 Liszt: A Faust Symphony, S. 108: IIIa. Chorus Mysticus 05:38
• Mephisto Waltz No. 3, S. 216 (Arr. For Orchestra by Alfred Reisenauer and Kirill Karabits):
• 5 Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No. 3, S. 216 (Arr. For Orchestra by Alfred Reisenauer and Kirill Karabits) 10:15
• Borys Lyatoshynsky (1895 - 1968): Grazhyna, Op. 58:
• 6 Lyatoshynsky: Grazhyna, Op. 58 17:45
• Total Runtime 01:35:36

Info for Franz Liszt: A Faust Symphony & Mephisto Waltz No. 3

In Liszt’s Faust Symphony psychology enters music. It displays the power of sound, of tone painting, to evoke a fantastical, epic and psychological world. With his subtle and analytical interpretation of Goethe’s Faust, Liszt creates psychological tableaux, recorded by the Staatskapelle Weimar under the baton of Kirill Karabits.

When Franz Liszt took over the court orchestra in Weimar in 1848, the memory of Goethe, who had previously directed the court theatre, was still venerated. Liszt was therefore Goethe's direct heir at Weimar - albeit as a musician. With his Faust Symphony, which was premiered on the same day as the inauguration of the Goethe and Schiller monument in front of the theatre, psychology made its way into music; Liszt's ambition was the "renewal of music through its more intimate connection with poetry". His Faust Symphony demonstrates the power of sound, of tone painting, to evoke a fantastical, epic and psychological world.

Each movement corresponds to a character whose traits and psychology it depicts. This is programme music, but it does not tell a story and is certainly not descriptive music. Liszt characterised musically the profound nature of each character, offering a subtle and analytical interpretation of the story of Faust as told by Goethe. The three character pictures are psychological tableaux set to music. Liszt does not simply tell the story of the characters or describe their feelings: he evokes their psyches.

Staatskapelle Weimar
Kirill Karabits, conductor

Kirill Karabits
a native of Ukraine, studied conducting and composition at the Lysenko Music School in Kiev, then at the National Music Academy of Ukraine "Peter Tchaikovsky" and at the Vienna Academy of Music. He was principal guest conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and junior conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In concert, Kirill Karabits has worked with orchestras such as the Cleveland, Philadelphia and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Filarmonica del Teatro La Fenice and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2016, he conducted the Russian National Orchestra on a tour of the USA and in two concerts at the Edinburgh International Festival. This summer he made his debut at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In the opera field, guest engagements include Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera, Bolshoi Theatre, Wagner Geneva Festival and Hamburg State Opera. In 2015, a new production of Khovantchina was staged under his direction at Theater Basel. He is the artistic director of the I, CULTURE Orchestra, an orchestra of young musicians from Poland and other Eastern European countries. At the same time, the Ukrainian-born conductor has been principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra since 2008; in recognition of his work in the UK, he was named Conductor of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2013. From 2016/17 Kirill Karabits is General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the German National Theatre and the Staatskapelle Weimar. This season, in addition to symphony concerts, he will conduct Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Weimar and Boris Godunow at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. At the Stuttgart Opera, Karabits will take over the musical direction of the new production of Death in Venice.

Booklet for Franz Liszt: A Faust Symphony & Mephisto Waltz No. 3