Schnittke's Faust Cantata

Listen nowto the inversion of John’s
Passion in 4/4 time. The dire pulse
of the ineluctable tango, cons
us into thinking, Faust would not play false

just once in his apocalypse of one,
and relent before his life was doused.
In the upper room, the body was flung
apart, a lion shook the house, and Faust’s

brain was found stuck to the wall. Schnittke’s song
turns Schmidt’s Seven Seals to a Black Pentecost.
This cabaret peformed for life so wrong,
becomes a solemn orgy, for the lost

demoniac, and not a sober watch;
in obscene assent of heart, mind and crotch.

Woodford Halse - 29 April 2021

I refer to the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke (1934-98) and his Faust Cantata Seid nuechtern und wachtet of 1983, which is based on Johann Spies’ account of 1587 of Faust’s death, which in turn inspired Marlowe. Also to verses from I Peter 5.8 with which the cantata concludes.

By Schmidt,I refer to Franz Schmidt again and his Oratorio of the Apocalypse, The Book of the Seven Seals.