DESCRIPTION:
Mephisto Polka, S. 217
The Mephisto Polka, S. 217 is a piece of program music written in folk-dance style for solo piano by Franz Liszt in 1882-3. The work's program is the same as that of the same composer's four Mephisto Waltzes, written respectively in 1859-60, 1880–81, 1882 and 1885 and based on the legend of Faust, not by Goethe but by Lenau. The Mephisto Polka was dedicated to Lina Schmalhausen, one of Liszt’s “inner-circle” piano students. However, she is remembered more as one among the closest and most ardently devoted of Liszt’s followers, frequently attending to and assisting in the many needs of the aged master whose health was in rapid decline. This work appears the simplest and technically least challenging of all the Mephisto dances; except for the Bagatelle sans tonalité, it is also the shortest. Tonally, it is also mildest and can appear to be a fully tonal composition, with chromaticism limited to neighboring-tone and chordal sonority varieties. These passages are usually realized on the left hand in chordal or arpeggiated figures. However, the simplicity in notation disguises the true character of the music. There is no functional harmony to clearly create the relational behavior of tonic, dominant, and subdominant harmonic functions. If anything, the general impression of the music is modal, with the piece constantly in flux. Any suggested tonality is quickly undermined by the following sonority, which may in turn vaguely (and now even more weakly) suggest another tonal focus. The most haunting touch is at the end, when the piece simply stops without explanation.

Franz Liszt was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher. Liszt became renowned throughout Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age and perhaps the greatest pianist of all time. He was also a well-known composer, piano teacher, and conductor who contributed significantly to the modern development of the art. He was a benefactor to other composers, including Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg and Alexander Borodin. As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the "Neudeutsche Schule" ("New German School"). He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated some 20th-century ideas and trends. Some of his most notable contributions were the invention of the symphonic poem, developing the concept of thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form and making radical departures in harmony.