how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, XV – what’s a rhapsody

by richibi

Rhapsody of Steel, 1959 - Eyvind Earle

        “Rhapsody of Steel“ (1959)

                   Eyvind Earle

                       ________

so what’s a rhapsody

if you’ve been following at all my 

musical adventure, you’ll have 

heard by now several rhapsodies 

 

at first, I suggested that the rhapsody

was an evolution from the fantasia,

a piece of music in one movement

that allowed for any internal 

construction, but that, after the

Classical Period, became imbued  

with Romanticism, passion became 

a condition of music, mere technical

ability was no longer enough  

 

note that the audience was different,

rather than nobles who commissioned

artists to decorate their salons, the

burgeoning Middle Class was hungry 

for them to entertain, performers were

becoming the main attraction, not just

the background, see, for instance, 

Beethoven

 

but not only did rhapsodies spread 

from just one player to an entire

orchestra – see Brahms, then 

see Gershwin – but its essential 

structure, one movement, was 

challenged, see Ravel here, or 

Rachmaninov, whose rhapsodies 

are both composed of distinct 

movements, Rachmaninov even 

further refining his movements 

into variations, for years, I 

referred to his Rhapsody on a 

Theme of Paganini as his 

Variations

 

all this to say that a rhapsody is 

turning out to be not identified 

by its structure, its technical

parts, but rather by its intention,

a rhapsody is in the eye of its 

composer, like a nocturne, or 

a ballade

 

I’d thought that rhapsodies had 

been relegated to the Romantic 

Era, with the occasional later 

tribute

 

who, I wondered, could be

writing rhapsodies anymore

 

but here’s something, however

unexpectedly, you’ll be familiar

with, from 1975, Queen’s Bohemian

Rhapsody, in several movements 

– intro, ballad, opera, hard rock, 

outro – and including in all of them,

note, voice

 

all of which speaks of tradition

being a lot closer than one would 

think, ancestral, residual, but

defining, traces, like genes, 

however updated, however

posthumously interpreted,

pervade, infiltrate, pursue,

inexorably

 

rhapsodies are in our DNA, it

would appear, for better or for 

worse, ever

 

here’s to them

 

 

R ! chard