Magyar rapszódiák

This montage from our Podcast Vault revisits a post from December 5, 2014. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast176

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Today’s five year old podcast was the first of two dedicated to Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies. The Hungarian Rhapsodies constitute a set of 19 piano pieces based on Hungarian folk themes, composed between 1846 and 1853, and later in 1882 and 1885. Liszt also arranged versions for orchestra, piano duet and piano trio.

Liszt incorporated many themes he had heard in his native western Hungary and which he believed to be folk music, though many were in fact contemporary tunes written by members of the Hungarian upper middle class, or by composers of the time, and performed publically by Roma (Gypsy) bands.
The large scale structure of each was influenced by the verbunkos, a Hungarian dance in several parts, each with a different tempo. Within this structure, Liszt preserved the two main structural elements of typical Gypsy improvisation—the lassan ("slow") and the friska ("fast"). At the same time, Liszt incorporated a number of effects unique to the sound of Gypsy bands, especially the pianistic equivalent of the cimbalom.

In their original piano form, the Hungarian Rhapsodies are noted for their difficulty. As is the norm for much of Liszt’s piano solo output, the thinking has to have been to use these works to showcase and display his legendary technique at the keyboard.

All nineteen rhapsodies will not fit our usual 75 to 90 minute podcast format, so I had to come up with a logical way of splitting them up over two podcasts… To do so, I chose to consider first the orchestral versions of the rhapsodies.(no. 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, and 14)  arranged by Franz Doppler, with revisions by Liszt himself.


As a bonus, here is the complete set for piano, thanks to YouTube and Brilliant Classics.



I think you will (still) love this music too.