Rhapsody (music)

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A rhapsody in music is a one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, colour and tonality. An air of spontaneous inspiration and a sense of improvisation make it freer in form than a set of variations. Sergei Rachmaninoff's set of variations on a theme by Niccolò Paganini are so free in structure that the composer called them a Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Romantic composers have a special affinity for the rhapsody format. Some posit that the rhapsody helps them musically embody "the first fine careless rapture" of the thrush's song described by Robert Browning in "Home Thoughts, from Abroad" (1845). The heroine's mad scene in Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor is rhapsodic in form.

Some familiar examples will give an idea of the character of a rhapsody:

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Claude Debussy, Première Rhapsodie
Franz Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsodies
Johannes Brahms, Rhapsodies for solo pianoforte, Second Rhapsody
Emmanuel Chabrier, España is a rhapsody on Spanish tunes.
Sergei Lyapunov, Rhapsody on Ukranian Themes
Maksim Mrvica, Croatian Rhapsody
George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, Second Rhapsody
George Enescu, Romanian Rhapsody
Edward German, Welsh Rhapsody
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Norfolk Rhapsody No.1
Maurice Ravel, Rapsodie espagnole
Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody
August Rush, "August's Rhapsody"
Tonči Huljić, Croatian Rhapsody
John Serry, Sr., American Rhapsody
Aminollah Hossein, Rhaspodies Persanes
David Popper, Hungarian Rhapsody
Billy Joel, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
Pancho Vladigerov, Rhapsody Vardar
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Venice Queen'
Radiohead, Paranoid Android
Green Day, Jesus of Suburbia
Muse, Knights of Cydonia

The Band Rhapsody of Fire is Based on this Style of Music

Rhapsody (music)

See also