The Faust Analogy
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One of the most alluring themes in the romantic era remains to be the Faust analogy. What is it like to make a transaction with the devil? What could be the prices that need to be paid? What would be the desire that you would most likely want to be fulfilled with, and why?
Music is a terrific vehicle to record the highs and lows gained from human aspiration, usually the sort of unachievable aspirations that only exist in the musical reality. Richard Strauss imagines himself to be Ein Heldenleben and accomplishes the Ovidian Metamorphosis. In Wagner, love is only achieved after death (Liebestod).
More important seems to be the aftermath of the deal. Usually in popular culture, the bittersweetness is debunked as hollowness, lesser, or insufficient. Pixar movie The Soul — a tale of a dead, unfulfilled Jazz pianist who risks to be reincarnated to relive his music dream — captures the moment of emptiness in one simple line:
After the pianist fulfills his dream performance. (Photo: Google)
I heard this story about a fish.
He swims up to an older fish and says, “I’m trying to find this thing they call ‘the ocean.'”
“The ocean? the older fish says, “That’s what you’re in right now.”
“This?” says the young fish. “This is water. What I want is the ocean!”
I remember sobbing at this scene when I first watched it during the pandemic. If we want to chase our aspiration, we surely have to face the kaleidoscopic consequences that only a dreamer would face. This tiny dialogue shows the confusion, loneliness, and who-knows-what-else sentiments behind the bright veneer of an aspiration. One of my beloved piano literature, Liszt b minor sonata, illustrates the same analogy in the most musically theatrical and introspective way.
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Liszt, as a pianist, is tended to be portrayed as a shallow pop star who easily agrees to give the public the satisfaction of technical virtuosity. Liszt, as a composer, likewise writes technically demanding passages that tend to impress and astound.
These judgements about Liszt are all true. I do not intend to rebut. I mean to stress that Liszt is meanwhile a deep composer. It is essential for posterity to witness different sides of Liszt. I would hate to reduce a music giant to a bare buffoon.
Faust
https://robertwilson.com/faust-iii
The orchestral feature of piano has everything to do with why Liszt chooses piano rather than other instruments. No other instrument can better capture the range of registers or express the diversity of timbers as piano does. Liszt knows piano has the resilience to bounce freely between the lowest note and the highest note that a musical mind can imagine. Liszt must also know the gist of the story constitutes the journey to personal and human extremities. Piano could deliver the yearning for talent, excellence, and triumph in an aggressive way, in a tender way, in an urgent way, in an delusional way, and in almost infinite other ways. Piano could deliver the sound world that it takes for a person to shift between pinnacles and abysses like a maniac.
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Pianistically, to perform this piece is also a devilish deal. It takes at least 30 minutes to perform this piece through. Recurring motifs of resolute peace is intertwined with psychotic nervousness, ambivalence, and desperation. Imagine that the pianist has to vicariously go through those phases when delivering it.
The sonata starts with a quite ominous ambience. Does Liszt mean to suggest pessimism for the conquest of aspiration, even if the work is autobiographical?
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The following motif (the left hand) penetrates throughout the work:
Lower-register, hammer-like, rhythmic, endlessly repeated -- what could it symbolize other than fate? The entire work begins with this motif and ends with this motif.
Unexpected shift to diatonicism -- hope, exhilaration, happy tears.
Light, tender, sweet, warm, and reciprocal
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Paradoxically, some pianists like to deliver the piece in an effortless way -- fearlessness of the technical tenacity, emotional variations, and philosophical profundity. By the way, speaking of philosophy, Brahms fell asleep while Liszt was performing this sonata. Liszt, who is famous for his unusual magnanimity, doesn’t mind that at all. Martha Argerich did that in her recording of 1971 in München. One has to ask if Argerich’s performance is an antithesis to the typical spirit of the Faust analogy or a reflection of the goddess’ own effortless artistry? After all, the queen is the queen.
The queen’s nonchalant gaze:
Faust? Who are you??