Bulgarian Rhapsody "Vardar", op. 16

The tune came to Vladigerov by word of mouth: the painter Konstantin Shturkelov sang it to him in a Berlin restaurant in October 1922, and the twenty-three-year-old composer built the rhapsody on it, first for violin and piano, dedicating it to the fighting Bulgarian youth in Macedonia. He orchestrated it in 1928, and in that form it became the most widely played Bulgarian orchestral piece both at home and abroad — an overture-length span that moves from a free, improvisatory opening to a driving dance. Its position in Bulgarian concert life is roughly that of Chopin's A major Polonaise in Polish.