Hungarian Rhapsodies virtuoso pianist as well as a composer). 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 tunes written by members of the Hungarian upper middle class, or by composers such as József Kossovits, often played 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
Rhapsodies for Orchestra idea and others take it up." Gantz added that it "worked out better in theory than in practice, though I liked the section in which the viola crooned over the orchestra’s 12-note ostinato." Likewise, Lawrence A. Johnson of the "Chicago Classical Review" called it "not one of Stucky’s more essential pieces" and noted that "Stucky’s debt to Witold Lutosławski [was] at times glaringly evident." Music critic Carla Rees similarly opined: Rhapsodies for Orchestra Rhapsodies for Orchestra is a single-movement orchestral composition by the American composer Steven Stucky. The work was jointly commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and the BBC