''Rhapsodie Macabre'' is a composition for piano and

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinist ...

in one movement by

Graham Waterhouse Graham Waterhouse (born 2 November 1962) is an English composer and cellist who specializes in chamber music. He has composed a cello concerto, '' Three Pieces for Solo Cello'' and '' Variations for Cello Solo'' for his own instrument, and str ...

, written in 2011 as a homage to

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

. It was first performed at a Liszt festival of the

Gasteig Gasteig is a cultural center in Munich, opened in 1985, which hosts the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. The Richard Strauss Conservatory, the Volkshochschule, and the municipal library are all located in the Gasteig. Most of the events of the ...

, Munich, with the composer playing the cello part.

History, structure and music

Waterhouse composed the work as the closing work of the 2011 Liszt Festival at the Gasteig, Munich, played in a concert of works by Liszt and Waterhouse. He combined elements of Liszt's music such as "virtuosic piano writing", "characteristic harmonic colour through the piling up of similar intervals", "timbre as a structural device, delineating form by extremes of high and low texture, as well as by the return of percussive elements" and "recurrence and transformation of idees fixes"

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

s, notably the Dies irae theme. The work developed to a "scaled down piano concerto", combining concertante elements for the piano with chamber music writing for the strings. The work is in one movement, structured in five sections: * Allegro alla toccata * Presto precipitando * Adagio lusingando * Vivace * Con moto giusto The first section, like a

toccata Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise vi ...

, is based on two themes, one of them the "Dies irae". In the second section, this theme "appears both in lyrical as well as in satirical guise". The third section introduces a

cantabile In music, ''cantabile'' , an Italian word, means literally "singable" or "songlike". In instrumental music, it is a particular style of playing designed to imitate the human voice. For 18th-century composers, ''cantabile'' is often synonymous w ...

line in the strings and leads to a dialogue of piano and first violin. The fourth section is a "demonic scherzo in 6/8 time". The finale combines the material of all previous sections and ends with a fast

coda Coda or CODA may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * Movie coda, a post-credits scene * ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television *''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...

. A review in the

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat. Histo ...

compares the music to a dreamlike ride through surreal territory, full of surprising events and turns. A reviewer in ''Das Orchester'' noted that the work has gestural moments ("gestische Momente)" and that it refers to music from the past, including the "Dies irae", discreetly woven in the texture. He described a theatrical danse macabre led by the first violin, using the

tritone In music theory, the tritone is defined as a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones (six semitones). For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be decomposed into the three ad ...

Performances and recording

The premiere was played at the Liszt Festival 2011 of the Gasteig by pianist Valentina Babor, string players of the

Münchner Philharmoniker The Munich Philharmonic (german: Münchner Philharmoniker, links=no) is a German symphony orchestra located in the city of Munich. It is one of Munich's four principal orchestras, along with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Rad ...

Clément Courtin, Namiko Fuse and Konstantin Sellheim, and the composer as the cellist. The same ensemble played several concerts in the Munich area, for example on 20 March 2012 at the

Hochschule für Musik München The University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (german: Hochschule für Musik und Theater München), also known as the Munich Conservatory, is a performing arts conservatory in Munich, Germany. The main building it currently occupies is ...

, combining works of Waterhouse, including Three Pieces for Solo Cello, with piano quartets of Beethoven. They performed the premiere in the UK on 9 October 2012 at

Highgate School Highgate School, formally Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate, is an English co-educational, fee-charging, independent day school, founded in 1565 in Highgate, London, England. It educates over 1,400 pupils in three sections – Highgat ...

, London, the composer's former school, in a concert dedicated to works by Waterhouse. The reviewer termed the work a mini-

piano concerto A piano concerto is a type of concerto, a solo composition in the classical music genre which is composed for a piano player, which is typically accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuoso showp ...

. ''Rhapsodie Macabre'' is part of a CD '' Skylla und Charybdis'' of the composer's works for piano and strings. It was released in 2020 by Farao Classics, and introduced by a concert at the Munich Gasteig on 6 March 2021.

References

External links

Graham Waterhouse
website * {{Authority control Chamber music by Graham Waterhouse Contemporary classical compositions Compositions for piano quintet 2011 compositions