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
Romanian Rhapsodies (Enescu) "Poème roumaine", Op. 1. The two Romanian Rhapsodies were composed in Paris, and premiered together in a concert at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest which also included the world premiere of Enescu's First Suite for Orchestra, Op. 9 (1903). The composer conducted all three of his own works, which were preceded on the programme by Berlioz's Overture to "Les francs-juges" and Schumann's Symphony No. 1, both conducted by . The concert took place on 23 February 1903 (according to the Julian calendar in use in Romania at that time; 8 March 1903 Gregorian). The Second Rhapsody was played first, and