Hyperion Records

This is one of the seven extant versions of the Rákóczi-Marsch, which is perhaps best known from the fifteenth Rapsodie hongroise. The version recorded here is the concert transcription of Liszt’s elaborate orchestral march, and is thus the longest of the piano versions. (Liszt also transcribed his orchestral version for two pianos, for piano duet, and as a simplified piano solo.) Liszt’s devotion to the theme and, by extension, to Hungary, is never clearer than in this fully symphonically developed work.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1994