Rhapsodies for Orchestra

Rhapsodies for Orchestra is a single-movement orchestral composition by the American composer Steven Stucky. The work was jointly commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and the BBC for the Philharmonic's European tour in August and September 2008. The piece had its world premiere August 28, 2008 in Royal Albert Hall at The Proms, with the New York Philharmonic performing under conductor Lorin Maazel.

In approaching Stucky with the commission for a new piece, Maazel suggested to Stucky that the composition be "something rhapsodic". Stucky later wrote, "I ran to the dictionary for help. The more I thought about the words rhapsody and rhapsodic—words I would never have chosen to describe my music—the more I realized that boundaries are meant to be pushed, and that an external, even foreign stimulus like 'rhapsodic' could be just the ticket to push mine." Stucky further described the composition in the score program notes, writing:

The resulting work is rhapsodic in two senses. It has a freely developing form, as if improvised, and it trades in ecstatic, fervent forms of expression. Although it is in one continuous movement, Rhapsodies is titled in the plural because it unrolls as a series of rhapsodic episodes, usually triggered by a single player whose ardent phrases gradually "infect" his neighbors until soon a whole section of the orchestra is sounding ecstatic. A solo flute (appassionato) draws other high woodwind voices in one by one, until they create a riotous mass of sound. A solo English horn (cantando, fervente) recruits clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, and more, until its whole neighborhood has broken into song, too. Solo horn and trumpet (nobile) launch still another outbreak, now among the brasses. Meanwhile, behind each of these episodes of rhapsodizing flows calmer, supporting music elsewhere in the orchestra, serving as a backdrop.

Unrelenting fervor can only be borne for so long. Eventually, the orchestra lapses, spent, into a quiet coda, where the intense experiences that have come before can be recollected in tranquility.

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