Welsh Rhapsody

• German’s Welsh Rhapsody premiered at the Cardiff Music Festival on September 21, 1904.¹ 
• German’s Welsh Rhapsody is structured like a miniature symphony, and its themes are taken from Welsh folk tunes.²

“One morning, musing over a pipe of tobacco after breakfast, the thought suddenly flashed across him: ‘Why not something of a purely Welsh character? And what more appropriate than a Welsh Rhapsody?’”

German’s first biographer, W.H. Scott, on the moment German decided how to respond to his Cardiff Music Festival commission.³

1. Hulme, David Russell, “German, Sir Edward,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed July 21, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000010936. 
2. Ibid.
3. Liner notes to German: Symphony No. 2 / Welsh Rhapsody, Ireland National Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Penny, Marco Polo 8.223726, CD, 1995.