Rhapsodies

Today’s Rhapsody is one I confess I hadn’t heard of before. I confess in doing this exercise after I finished the cursory sweep of all of the Rhapsodies everyone knows and then doing all of the Rhapsodies that were on everyone’s list of Rhapsodies, things got a little challenging… research was required.

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover Rhapsody in A minor, Op. 14 by Antonin Dvorak.

I’ve been a big fan of Dvorak’s music since high school and not just because the  Largo to the New World Symphony was one of the more complex pieces I learned back when I was trying to master the violin. His music has a primal power to it that I only hear in a few others, such as  Sibelius. It’s a quality that I find myself looking for frequently in orchestral music. I think it’s the way it taps the lizard brain.