The work, which has the dimensions of an oratorio, is divided into four parts, the first of which contains three scenes, the second five, the third six, and the fourth six, concluding with a short epilogue and the apotheosis of Marguerite. The persons represented are Marguerite (mezzo-soprano), Faust (tenor), Mephistopheles (bass), and Brander (bass). The story does not closely follow Goethe’s version, as the opening scene discloses Faust alone at sunrise on a plain in Hungary, where Berlioz places him in order to have the opportunity of introducing the Hungarian national march. He sings in tender strain of the joys of spring and the delights of nature, but his reverie is disturbed by a rollicking chorus and dance of peasants. From another part of the plain come warlike sounds of an advancing army to the stirring and brilliant music of the Rákóczy March. The troops pass and Faust retires, unmoved by the scene. The second part opens with Faust in North Germany, alone in his study. He voices his discontent with the world; as he is on the point of drowning his sorrow with poison, the tones of the Easter Hymn (‘Christ is risen from the dead’) strike his ear. He listens in wonderment to the joyful strains and at the end joins in the stately chorus. Repentant and exalted, he resolves to begin anew, when Mephistopheles suddenly appears and mockingly exclaims, ‘Sweet sentiments indeed and fit for any saint!’ Faust is entrapped by his promises and they disappear. The next scene finds them in Auerbach’s cellar in Leipzig amid a band of carousing students who sing a lusty drinking song (‘Oh, it is rare when winter’s storms are loudly roaring’). There follows the drunken Brander’s song of the rat, at the end of which the irreverent students improvise an ironical fugue on the word ‘Amen’ to a motive from the theme of Brander’s song. Mephistopheles adds to the reckless merriment with the song of the flea (‘Once on a time a king, sirs, loved a flea passing well’). Amid the heavy bravos of the drunken students, Faust and Mephistopheles vanish, to appear again in the next scene, the seventh, on the wooded meadows on the banks of the Elbe. Mephistopheles sings a delightful melody (‘Within these bowers’) and summons the spirits of earth and of air to lull his companion to sleep. Faust slumbers while the gnomes and sylphs sing a chorus of ravishing beauty (‘Dream, happy Faust’), closing with an exquisitely delicate orchestral number in waltz-measure, the dance of the sylphs. As they disappear, Faust wakes and relates his vision of Marguerite. Mephistopheles agrees to lead him to her chamber and on the way thither they join a band of jovial soldiers and students marching along the street. The last scene of this part consists of a lively soldiers’ chorus (‘Tower and wall may bar our way’) and a characteristic Latin student-song (_Jam nox stellata_), the two being cleverly combined at the end.