Goethe'sFaust, a work which has attracted the attention of composers since the late eighteenth century and played a vital role in the evolution of vocal, operatic and instrumental repertoire in the nineteenth century, hashad a seminal impact in musical realms.

Goethe's Faust, a work which has attracted the attention of composers since the late eighteenth century and played a vital role in the evolution of vocal, operatic and instrumental repertoire in the nineteenth century, hashad a seminal impact in musical realms.

That Goethe's poetry has proved pivotal for the development of the nineteenth-century Lied has long been acknowledged. Less acknowledged is the seminal impact in musical realms of Goethe'sFaust, a work which has attractedthe attention of composers since the late eighteenth century and played a vital role in the evolution of vocal, operatic and instrumental repertoire in the nineteenth century. While Goethe longed to haveFaust set to musicand 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. Despite this, a floodtide of musical interpretations of Goethe'sFaust came into existence from Beethoven to Schubert, Schumann to Wagner and Mahler, and Gounod to Berlioz; and a broad trajectory can be traced from Zelter's colourful description of the first setting ofGoethe's Faust to Alfred Schnittke's Faust opera (1993).
This book explores the musical origins of Goethe'sFaust and the musical dimensions of its legacy. It uncovers the musical furore caused by Goethe'sFaust and considers why his polemical text has resonated so strongly with composers. Bringing together leading musicologists and Germanists, the book addresses a wide range of issues including reception history, the performative challenges of writing music forFaust, the impact of the legend on composers' conceptual thinking, and the ways in which it has been used by composers to engage with other contemporary intellectual concepts. Constituting the richest examination to date of the musicality of language and form in Goethe'sFaust and its musical rendering from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries, the book will appeal to music, literary and Goethe scholars and students alike.

LORRAINE BYRNE BODLEY is Senior Lecturer in Musicology at Maynooth University and President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland.

Contributors: Mark Austin, Lorraine Byrne Bodley, NicholasBoyle, John Michael Cooper, Siobhán Donovan, Osman Durrani, Mark Fitzgerald, John Guthrie, Heather Hadlock, Julian Horton, Ursula Kramer, Waltraud Meierhofer, Eftychia Papanikolaou, David Robb, Christopher Ruth, Glenn Stanley, Martin Swales, J. M. Tudor

Introduction: Rhapsody and Rebuke: Goethe'sFaust in Music - Lorraine Byrne Bodley
The Redress of Goethe'sFaust in Music History - Lorraine Byrne Bodley
Wagering on Modernity: Goethe's Eighteenth-Century Faust - Nicholas Boyle
Reflectivity, Music and the Modern Condition: Thoughts on Goethe'sFaust - Martin Swales
Music and Metaphorical Thinking in Goethe'sFaust: The Example of Harmony - J Tudor
Faust: The Instrumentalisation of an Icon - Osman Durrani
Faust's Schubert: Schubert'sFaust - John Michael Cooper
The Musical Novel as Master-Genre: Schumann'sSzenen aus Goethes Faust
The Psychology of Schumann's Faust: Developing the Human Soul - Christopher Ruth
A Life with Goethe: Wagner's Engagement withFaust in Music and in Words - Glenn Stanley
Wagner's Ninth: Reading Beethoven with Faust - Mark Austin
Linking Christian and Faustian Utopias: Mahler's Setting of theSchlußszene in his Eighth Symphony - Eftychia Papanikolaou
Operatic Translation and Adaptation: Gounod'sFaust, with a Tribute to Ken Russell - Siobhan Donovan
Adapters, Falsifiers and Profiteers: StagingLa Damnation de Faust in Monte Carlo and Paris, 1893-1903 - Heather Hadlock
Faust in the Trenches: Busoni'sDoktor Faust - Mark Fitzgerald
As Goethe Intended? Max Reinhardt'sFaust Productions and the Aesthetics of Incidental Music in the Early 20th Century - Ursula Kramer
Music and the Rebirth ofFaust in the GDR - David Robb
Music, Text and Stage: Peter Stein's Production of Goethe'sFaust - John Guthrie
'Devilishly good': Rudolf Volz's Rock OperaFaust and 'Event Culture' - Waltraud Maierhofer
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