Faust-Quadrille, Op. 112 - Josef Strauss

Josef Strauss wrote his Faust Quadrille after motifs from Charles Gounod’s opera Faust in the summer of 1861, and performed it for the first time on 11th August in Carl Schwender’s Neue Welt establishment in Hietzing. Josef Strauss displayed great skill in arranging the themes for his quadrille. For the first part (Pantalon), he chose scenes and the chorus of No. 2 of the piano edition, and for the second part (Été), the student chorus of No. 5 (Church Fair), and soldiers’ chorus No. 22. In the third part (Poule), he quotes the orchestral prelude and Faust’s drinking song, No. 29. In the fourth part (Trénis), he drew on the Mephisto’s church scene and Margarethe’s prison scene. The fifth part (Pastourelle), refers again to chorus No. 5 (Church Fair). In the finale, he once again presents the orchestral prelude to the soldiers’ chorus No. 22, and the cavatina of the protagonist Faust. Since the quadrille was successful, and he was able to present it time and again during the course of the 1861 season, he followed suit with further arrangements after motifs from Gounod’s opera. His brother Johann wrote the arrangement of a cavatina of the universally popular opera. Finally, in Russia, for his summer concerts in Pavlovsk, he wrote a Faust Quadrille as well. This particular work, however, appeared only at the publisher Verlag Büttner in St Petersburg (as Op. 277) and was never played in Vienna.

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Painting: A lithographic Victorian sheet music cover to promote a song about the legendary Faust Opera, circa 1860

Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice
Michael Dittrich