[1] Moreover, unlike other compositions by Karłowicz, the Rhapsody is based on actual folk material (Lithuanian and Belarusian melodies),[2] much of which was collected by the composer in 1900 while on vacation at his family estate.
[2][3] This is how he wrote about the piece in a letter to his friend Adolf Chybiński (24 Nov 1906):[1][2][4][5] I have tried to encapsulate within it the total grief, sadness and eternal servitude of that race whose songs I heard in my childhood...
[6]According to Leszek Polony, the leading Polish authority on Karłowicz, the Rhapsody had to do with "recollections of childhood, with the portrayal of the family home and children’s games".
[2] In later years the Rhapsody was heard in Polish concert halls of Warsaw, Kraków and Lviv, but also abroad: in Nice, Glasgow, Saint Petersburg and London.
It was performed by several prominent conductors like Grzegorz Fitelberg, Emil Młynarski, Mieczysław Sołtys, Zdzisław Birnbaum, Henryk Opieński and José Lassalle.