efrain
of the "Ronde des Paysans" by the gaslight in a shop; and at Prague he
arose in the middle of the night to write down the Angels' Chorus in
Marguerite's apotheosis. At Breslau he wrote the Students' Latin Song,
"Jam nox stellata velamina pandit;" and on his return to France he
composed the grand trio in the work while visiting a friend near Rouen.
He concludes:

"The rest was written in Paris, but always improvised, either at my own
house, or at the cafe, or in the Tuileries gardens, and even on a stone
in the Boulevard du Temple. I did not search for ideas, I let them
come; and they presented themselves in a most unforeseen manner. When
at last the whole outline was sketched, I set to work to re-do the
whole, touch up the different parts, unite and blend them together with
all the patience and determination of which I am capable, and to finish
off the instrumentation, which had only been indicated here and there.
I look upon this as one of my best works, and hitherto the public seems
to be of the same opinion."

This opinion, however, was of slow growth, for of the first performance
of the work he says:--

"It was the end of November, 1846; snow was falling; the weather was
dreadful. I had no fashionable cantatrice to sing the part of
Marguerite. As for Roger, who did Faust, and Herman Leon, who took the
part of Mephistopheles, they might be heard any day in this same
theatre; moreover, they were no longer the fashion. The result was that
Faust was twice performed to a half-empty room. The concert-going
Parisian public, supposed to be fond of music, stayed quietly at home,
caring as little about my new work as if I had been an obscure student
at the Conservatoire; and these two performances at the Opera Comique
were no better attended than if they had been the most wretched operas
on the list."

The opening scene introduces Faust alone in the fields at sunrise on the
Hungarian plains. He gives expression to his delight in a tender, placid
strain ("The Winter has departed, Spring is here"). It is followed by an
instrumental prelude of a pastoral character, in which are heard
fragments of the roundelay of the peasants and of the fanfare in the
Hungarian march, leading up to the "Dance of Peasants," a brisk,
vivacious chorus ("The Shepherd donned his best Array"), beginning with
the altos, who are finally joined by the sopranos, tenors, and basses in
constantly acceler