It's a great way to warm up for the new season. The Harrisburg Symphony and Stuart Malina start the new season this weekend - Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm at the Forum - with Franz Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody, one of the most familiar pieces of classical music, at least to an earlier generation.
While you can read about (and hear) the other works on the program - Rachmaninoff's 1st Piano Concerto and Prokofiev's 5th Symphony - I thought this post would be a little... well, more light-hearted.
First, an educational video with background information and a performance of the orchestral version of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt.
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(There's something about mentioning the various details of his love life while mixing in pictures of him as a priest. Yes, it's true, Franz Liszt later entered the priesthood but that was considerably later in his life.)
Originally a virtuoso piano piece written in 1847, the second of eventually nineteen rhapsodies for solo piano, this particular rhapsody was later orchestrated with help from Franz Doppler. Liszt himself made a piano duet version (four-hands, two pianists sharing the bench) in 1874.
Here is an amazing performance of the piano version by none other than Sergei Rachmaninoff (whose 1st Piano Concerto will follow it on this Harrisburg Symphony program):
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Oh, and did I mention Rachmaninoff plays his own cadenza near the very end?
Of course, its popularity has also made it the target of much fun-poking. For instance, this classic skit with Victor Borge and friend in a two-seater arrangement:
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not to mention another legendary performance by Bugs Bunny, or this other famous duet team, Tom & Jerry, cartoons that those of us who are 'of a certain age' remember fondly.
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Hope you can join us to celebrate the start of the new 2011-2012 Season this weekend at the Forum!
- Dick Strawser
P.S. (See comment below) A friend and former student wrote to tell me this post reminded her of a favorite childhood cartoon. If you can bear with one more cartoon version of Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody, I now present Warner Bros.' Rhapsody in Rivets!
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What fun. One of my childhood musical memories is an image of cartoon characters hammering rivets to to the accompaniment of this piece. So, inspired by your blog and thanks to Google, I discovered that the cartoon is called Rhapsody in Rivets and was able to watch it again. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Orly - I'd forgotten all about this one - and so I added it to the post! Curiously, "Rhapsody in Rivets" was one of the working titles for George Gershwin's sequel to Rhapsody in Blue in 1930, along with "New York Rhapsody" or "Manhattan Rhapsody." This cartoon dates from 1941.
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