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
Classical piano in Cuba she has also offered Master Classes at Miami’s New World Symphony and the European Piano Teachers Association in Blonay, Switzerland. Classical piano in Cuba After its arrival in Cuba at the end of the 18th century, the pianoforte (commonly called piano) rapidly became one of the favorite instruments among the Cuban population. Along with the humble guitar, the piano accompanied the popular Cuban guarachas and contradanzas (derived from the European country dance) at salons and ballrooms in Havana and all over the country. As soon as in 1804, a concert program in Havana announced a vocal concert “accompanied at the