Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 12/18/2009, uploaded on 12/18/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Two successive visits to Hungary during 1839-40 inspired the nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies of Franz Liszt. The composer had been absent from his homeland for over a decade and the visits motivated him to immortalize his country and heritage in music. During these two visits, he transcribed melodies he heard performed by roaming gypsy bands. Liszt believed these to be authentic Hungarian folk music. However, most of them were actually the inventions of contemporary Hungarian composers whose fame had spread into the popular scene. Nevertheless, Liszt composed his Rhapsodies and published fifteen of them between 1851 and 1853. The remaining four followed decades later in 1882-86. Several became quite popular with audiences and later appeared in altered forms. Six of the Rhapsodies were arranged by Franz Doppler for orchestra while Liszt transcribed the same six, as well as three others, for piano duet. Two were arranged by the composer himself for violin, cello and piano.

The eleventh Hungarian Rhapsody, in A minor, is one of the briefest and musically more showpiece than anything else. Nevertheless, it is does display Liszt’s often ingenious coloristic effects with its mimicking of the cimbalom, a Hungarian instrument related to the dulcimer. The Rhapsody opens with a Lento  a capriccio. Quiet, trembling chords dominate the beginning, though at moments a fiery melodic motif interjects but only to subside back into the effervescent musical landscape. A brighter mood arrives with the following section, Andante sostenuto, and a shift to the tonic major key. The melody is both tender and stately, but throughout full of a youthful vigor. The Rhapsody takes flight in the following section as the tempo suddenly jumps to a Vivace assai and a simple turn-like motif in F-sharp minor is accompanied by rapidly ascending chromatic scales. Lastly, the Rhapsody concludes with a grandiloquent Prestissimo in F-sharp major. A brief section, it rushes with abandon to a bombastic conclusion, in the ostentatious style one expects of Liszt, of tonic and dominant chords.      Joseph DuBose