Liszt F. Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano

The Hungarian Rhapsodies by Franz Liszt (1811–1886) belong to the most brilliant and novel compositions. The great master of piano managed to work out the folklore origins, basing the musical canvas of these rhapsodies. The musicologist Mikhiil Druskin marked, “...the twenty one pieces from the Hungarian Melodies and Rhapsodies (1840–1848) to have become the initial project of the future large-scaled cycle. Many of the tunes entered the rhapsodies’ material. “I derived resources, — Liszt uttered concerning these themes, — everywhere I found them: firstly from my own children reminiscences, descending from Bihari and other gypsy kings, then I ladled them out of the fields, right in the thick of the Edenburgh, Presburg and Pest's gypsy orchestras. Finally, I learned by heart and reproduced numerous tunes, which were generously reported to me by means of piano or just written down...”.
     Of course, this is the style verbunkos to be imprinted here. As to the genre of instrumental rhapsody, it wholly belongs to Liszt himself.
     However, the Hungarian composer was not the pioneer, having induced this indication to piano music. It was in 1815 when the Czech composer У. J. Tomašek started his work at rhapsodies. Liszt interpreted this idea quite the other way. His rhapsodies are formed as paraphrases, where the folk traditional songs and dances are used instead of the opera ones. The construction in rhapsodies is also rather distinctive, for two sections confront with each other, i. е. the slow improvisational and agile variational” (М. Druskin, History of the Foreign Music. “Compozitor Publishing House • Sankt Petersburg”, 2002/ Issue 4, page 255).

Music text example: Rhapsodie 1, Rhapsodie 9, Rhapsodie 13, Rhapsodie 19