Sophie Menter she became professor of piano at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory but left in 1886 to continue concertizing. Because of her popularity, Menter succeeded with music that no other pianist would touch. This included Liszt's First Piano Concerto, which she played in Vienna in 1869, 12 years after its disastrous premiere there. One of her recital specialties was a piece entitled "Rhapsodies". This was a composite of three of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies—Nos. 2, 6 and 12—along with fragments from several others. She also composed various pieces for piano, mainly in a brilliant style, yet referred to her own compositional talent as
Rhapsodies for Orchestra idea and others take it up." Gantz added that it "worked out better in theory than in practice, though I liked the section in which the viola crooned over the orchestra’s 12-note ostinato." Likewise, Lawrence A. Johnson of the "Chicago Classical Review" called it "not one of Stucky’s more essential pieces" and noted that "Stucky’s debt to Witold Lutosławski [was] at times glaringly evident." Music critic Carla Rees similarly opined: Rhapsodies for Orchestra Rhapsodies for Orchestra is a single-movement orchestral composition by the American composer Steven Stucky. The work was jointly commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and the BBC