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
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Hess) Classical Brit Award. It entered the Classic FM Top 300 in 2008 and fell out of the chart in 2011, returning in 2012 at no 221. Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Hess) The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is a work by Nigel Hess, first performed in 2007. It was commissioned by HRH Charles, Prince of Wales, in memory of his late grandmother Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Prior to this, Hess was best known as a composer of film and television scores. The concerto was first performed by Lang Lang, who also recorded the work, in July 2007, at