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
Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs "Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs", Sz. 71, BB 79 is a collection of short folk melodies arranged for piano by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. It was composed between 1914 and 1918. The collection consists of fifteen movements, some of which are grouped together. A typical performance lasts 13–15 minutes. The movement list is as follows: Some critics claim Bartók intended the work to be split into two parts: the first one would include the first six movements, and the second one would include the following nine movements. However, such division is not present in the original score.