Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 3 is the shortest of his series of 19 Rhapsodies published in 1852 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 seemingly improvised cadenzas – appear here in a unique density.
Since none of Liszt’s manuscripts for this piece are extant today, all available printed sources (an advance copy plus the first edition and a reprint) were carefully compared. Two prominent Liszt specialists were involved in preparing this Urtext edition: Maria Eckhardt wrote the preface, and Vincenzo Maltempo provided the fingerings.