Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, S. 244/6

1. 0:00
   Opening, Tempo giusto, D♭ major

   The left hand plays steady chords in D♭ major. Above them, the melody crosses the barlines against the march’s two-beat metre. Liszt marked the opening Tempo giusto.

2. 0:35
   Sources of the melodies

   Liszt wrote down the tune of the short second section in 1840, three years before it was published in a folk-song collection in 1843. The opening melody is known as Chlopiczky.

3. 1:00
   Publication of Rhapsodies III–XV, 1853

   Rhapsodies III to XV were all published in 1853. Liszt took their material from an earlier set of twenty-two Hungarian songs and rhapsodies, selecting thirteen pieces and reworking them. Only the first two rhapsodies were entirely new.

4. 1:25
   Presto in C♯ major

   After a cadenza played largely on the black keys, the Presto begins. D♭ major is now written as C♯ major, with the same pitches under different names. The tune becomes a quick dance, its steps much closer together.

5. 2:06
   Andante in B♭ minor

   After the quick dance, the Andante moves to B♭ minor. The piano’s melody is ornamented and broken by pauses, with each phrase lengthened in an improvisatory rhythm. A long cadenza leads into the finale.

6. 2:45
   Horváth’s song, printed 1813

   The slow tune is by Ádám Pálóczi Horváth and was printed in 1813. Liszt had already used it in his Rumanian Rhapsody.

7. 4:08
   Allegro in B♭ major

   The Allegro stays in B♭ and moves from minor to major. A repeated quaver rhythm in the bass accompanies the fast tune above it. This is the friss, the fast dance that occupies the rest of the rhapsody.

8. 4:48
   Melody in octaves, right hand

   The right hand plays the tune in octaves, in fast repeated notes. Each melodic note sounds at two pitches an octave apart. Beneath it the left hand keeps the dance rhythm.

9. 5:22
   Source of the final dance tune

   The tune of the final fast dance appears in a handwritten collection of Hungarian themes, the Nagy potpourri, held in the Goethe-⁠Schiller Archive. Liszt received it from János Liszt, a relation by marriage.

10. 5:55
    Coda in B♭ major

    The hands play chromatic scales in octaves in contrary motion. The closing chords are in B♭ major, the key of the finale. The opening march was in D♭ major.

Joins

1. 1:25
   Black-key cadenza into the Presto

   A piano cadenza, written largely on the black keys, separates the march from the Presto. Liszt respells D♭ major as C♯ major, so the tonic pitch stays the same. The measured bass chords of the opening stop, and the quick dance begins.

2. 2:06
   From Presto to Andante

   The Presto ends and the Andante begins in B♭ minor, the relative minor of the opening D♭ major. The piano drops the quick dance rhythm and plays a melody with pauses and ornaments, in a free, improvisatory rhythm.

3. 4:08
   From the cadenza to the B♭ major Allegro

   The Andante ends with a long piano cadenza. The Allegro follows in B♭ major, changing the B♭ minor of the preceding section by replacing D♭ with D♮. Repeated quavers in the bass set a regular dance rhythm under the fast tune.

4. 4:48
   Finale tune doubled in octaves

   In the B♭ major finale, Liszt doubles the tune in octaves and repeats its notes in semiquavers. Beneath it the left hand keeps up the quaver rhythm. The melody carries on through the right hand’s rapid jumps.

5. 5:55
   Contrary-motion octaves to the close

   The closing piano runs turn into chromatic scales in octaves, with the hands moving in contrary motion. These scales lead to the final chords in B♭ major, the key of the dance.