Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 3 is the shortest of his series of 19 Rhapsodies published in 1853 and represents an extensive reworking of a Hungarian National Melody published already ten years before.

A comparison of the two shows that Liszt does justice to his new title of “Rhapsody” through a substantially freer treatment of harmony, rhythm and compositional structure. Typical characteristics of this series of works - such as augmented seconds, oscillation between major and minor and seem...