The Rákóczi march is often referred to as the “Hungarian Marseillaise”. The beginnings of this march song go back to around 1730. In the text, the Hungarians summon Franz II Rákóczi to free his people from the Habsburg oppression. The melody has been arranged many times, e. g. by Brahms and Berlioz, even Liszt made several arrangements of varying degrees of difficulty. He eventually did a “concert arrangement” of the theme in his highly virtuosic Hungarian Rhapsody no. 15. Our Urtext edition opens with a knowledgeable preface by the Hungarian Liszt scholar Mária Eckhardt.
