Liszt Faust Symphony
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
Joshua Weilerstein
4.9 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thank you to Jerry for sponsoring today's episode on Patreon!
Goethe's Faust is considered to be the greatest work of German literature. This sprawling, 2-part play occupied Goethe's life for nearly 60 years, from its original version, begun in 1772, all the way to Goethe's final revisions before his death. It inspired just about every Romantic era composer who came after it, including Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Berlioz, Gounod, Mahler, and our subject for the show today, Franz Liszt.
Liszt, who was in many ways the world's first pop star, was initially skeptical of Faust, saying that he couldn't relate to the eponymous main character of the play. He wrote: "Faust's personality scatters and dissipates itself; he takes no action, lets himself be driven, hesitates, experiments, loses his way, considers, bargains, and is interested in his own little happiness."
But slowly, Liszt began to be taken in by this remarkable play and decided to try his hand at a reflection on it, writing a massive, 3-movement, 75-minute-long symphony that never attempts to tell the story of Faust, but instead reflects on the psychological nature of the 3 central characters: Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles (the Devil). A lot of English-speaking listeners will know this as the story of a man who sold his soul to the devil, but for Goethe it was much more than that, and it was for Liszt as well.
I've never talked about Liszt on the show, because frankly I've never been in love with his music. But this is one of the great things that these Patreon-sponsored episodes can do — help me discover pieces that I've never come across before. So today, we're going to talk about Liszt, Faust, and then take a stab at some of the greatest moments in this symphony. We'll talk about thematic transformation, a technique Liszt essentially invented and which is a vital part of understanding this piece.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Sticky Notes, the Classical Music podcast. |
| 0:09.0 | My name is Joshua Weilerstein. I'm a conductor, and I'm the music director of the |
| 0:12.8 | Orchestra Nacional de Lille and the chief conductor of the Allborg Symphony. |
| 0:17.1 | This podcast is for anyone who loves classical music, works in the field, or is just getting ready to dive in this amazing world of incredible music. |
| 0:25.3 | Before we get started, I want to thank my new Patreon sponsors, Natalie, Anne, Michael, Adam, Peter, Franchia, Judith, Julie, George, Rebecca, Stephen, Michael, Eric, Robert, Rebecca W., Jim, Boris, Hammer Piano, |
| 0:44.4 | Karin, Donna, AJ in VA, Carl, Sean, Daniel, and Yorn, and all of my other Patreon sponsors |
| 0:53.6 | for making Season 11 possible. |
| 0:55.8 | If you'd like to support the show, please head over to patreon.com slash Sticky Notes Podcast. |
| 1:00.8 | And if you are a fan of the show, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. |
| 1:06.5 | It is greatly appreciated. |
| 1:09.4 | As you all probably heard, lots of new Patreon sponsorships this week, as I've just begun |
| 1:14.0 | my 21-part series on Schubert's Song Cycle de Shunnamolleran. |
| 1:19.3 | We had part one last week, the introduction to the show, basically giving a bit of background, |
| 1:24.5 | and now this week, today, episode number one will come out, |
| 1:28.7 | or I guess episode number two, about song number one of Disha Nmullerin. It's been such a joy to |
| 1:35.2 | put that series together, and we've already got a pretty lively discussion going on about |
| 1:38.9 | the best recordings of the piece, so I do encourage you to check that out on patreon.com slash sticky notes podcast. In terms of |
| 1:47.2 | conducting, I've been all over the place. It was in Alborg for two weeks doing Mahler 2 for the |
| 1:51.8 | very first time, which was incredibly exciting, along with an American program. And then next week, |
| 1:57.1 | I'll be in Leal doing one of my favorite programs of the year with Beethoven's |
| 2:01.7 | Fifth Symphony and Gidon Klein's Partita for Strings, and Shostakovich's second piano concerto |
| 2:07.0 | with the great Dennis Koziken. This week's episode is a bit of a continuation of the episode I did |
... |
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