Susan Juhl wrote:

>I'm leaving in a week for a month-long trip.  A highlight is attending
>Busoni's Doktor Faustus at the Salzburg Festival.  The only recording on
>CD was published by DG, but it's been deleted.  I tried Berkshire and the
>usual suspects but can't find a copy, therefore haven't heard it.  Anybody
>have info on this opera? Thanks.

I've only heard the opera once, and that was many years ago in Berlin.  It
impressed me above all as striving to be an __intellectual__ work.  Quiet
persuasion is what it was about, rather than emotional capture.  Busoni
wrote the text himself on the basis of the old Faustus Puppenspiel.  Hew
kept the music cool but largely pleasant.  One of the two overture-preludes
strruck me as wonderfully crafted--a kind of engineered exercise in
metaphysics:the music materialized from a laden silence and then worked
itself up in crisp stages to a joyous Easter hymn.  There's also some
arresting march music, or music in a march tempo, all in a style that for
the life of me I can't think of pinning on anyone else than Butoni himself.
I didn't regret experiencing the performance.  I think it's the kind of
piece that sits well with a broad range of tastes.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]