The Damnation of Faust: Rákóczy March

Composer: BERLIOZ, (Louis-) Hector
  • The Rákóczi [pronunciation] March is a Hungarian national melody first transcribed c.1810,1 named after Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II (1676-1735), who led a Hungarian uprising against the Habsburg empire.2
  • Berlioz’s arrangement of this march was composed in 1846 and premiered under the baton of the composer in Pest (now Budapest), Hungary. The audience loved it; it appealed to their nationalist feelings.3
  • Berlioz’s Rákóczy March was interpolated into his La damnation de Faust, “légende dramatique,” Op. 24, composed 1845-6 (Berlioz created a unique genre for this work, something between an oratorio and an opera. The work is often staged as an opera).4

Sources

  1. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed., s.v. “Rákóczi March” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
  2. “Ferenc Rákóczi, II,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (April 4, 2019), accessed July 25, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ferenc-Rakoczi-II.
  3. Hugh Macdonald, “Berlioz, (Louis-)Hector,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed July 25, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051424.
  4. Ibid.

Cut IDs

14282 15255 42676