Symphonic Rhapsody op. 14

Howard Harold Hanson’s Symphonic Rhapsody for Piano, composed during the summer of 1919, is his largest single-movement solo piano work. In a letter in July of 1919 to College of the Pacific president, Tully C. Knoles, Hanson wrote, “It is an attempt to put the emotional contents of an entire four movement Sonata into one movement of considerable length.” This piece reveals many pianistic features which demonstrate the technical and expressive gifts of the composer as pianist.