A rhapsody in music is a one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, colour and tonality. An air of spontaneous inspiration and a sense of improvisation make it freer in form than a set of variations. Sergei Rachmaninoff's set of variations on a theme by Niccolò Paganini are so free in structure that the composer called them a Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Romantic composers have a special affinity for the rhapsody format. Some posit that the rhapsody helps them musically embody "the first fine careless rapture" of the thrush's song described by Robert Browning in "Home Thoughts, from Abroad" (1845). The heroine's mad scene in Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor is rhapsodic in form.

Some familiar examples will give an idea of the character of a rhapsody:

• Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
• Claude Debussy, Première Rhapsodie
• Franz Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsodies
• Johannes Brahms, Rhapsodies for solo pianoforte, Second Rhapsody
• Emmanuel Chabrier, España is a rhapsody on Spanish tunes.
• George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, Second Rhapsody
• George Enescu, Romanian Rhapsody
• Edward German, Welsh Rhapsody
• Ralph Vaughan Williams, Norfolk Rhapsody No.1
• Maurice Ravel, Rapsodie espagnole
• Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody
• August Rush, "August's Rhapsody"
• Tonči Huljić, Croatian Rhapsody
• John Serry, Sr., American Rhapsody
• Aminollah Hossein, Rhaspodies Persanes
• David Popper, Hungarian Rhapsody
• Billy Joel, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
• Pancho Vladigerov, Rhapsody Vardar
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, Venice Queen'
• Radiohead, Paranoid Android
• Green Day, Jesus of Suburbia
• Muse, Knights of Cydonia

See also

• pot-pourri