Late works of Franz Liszt to Saint-Saëns. The three czárdás that Liszt wrote—titled "Czárdás", "Czárdás obstinée" and "Czárdás macabre"—are less freely treated than the Hungarian Rhapsodies and remain more specifically Hungarian than gypsy in thematic material. Their spare lines, angular rhythms and advanced harmonies show these pieces to be direct ancestors of Bartók's work. Because of these attributes, the czárdás are considered by Liszt scholars among the more interesting of the composer's late output. The same, some critics argue, cannot be said as uniformly about his Hungarian Rhapsodies 16-19, composed after he had neglected the genre 30 years. Of these four late rhapsodies, only the
Don Gillis (composer) tone poems like "Portrait of a Frontier Town", piano concertos, rhapsodies for harp and orchestra, and six string quartets. He also composed a wide variety of band music. Gillis is best remembered as the composer of his "Symphony No. 5½, A Symphony for Fun", originally performed by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra during a September 21, 1947, broadcast concert that Gillis also produced; it was preserved on transcription discs but not commercially issued. Since 2005, his symphonies have been recorded on the Albany Records label. Gillis sought to interpret contemporary American culture musically. His music drew upon popular