Composed in London in 1937, premiered in Baden-Baden the following year, and revised two decades later, these sketches follow Rózsa's usual practice of evoking Hungarian folk music without quoting any actual tunes. The opening capriccio bristles with brass-and-timpani-reinforced energy, pulling back occasionally for witty interjections from the woodwinds and solo strings. The central slow movement, a pastorale, adopts Rózsa's nocturnal style: peaceful, rather nostalgic, perhaps even at times glum, but without the threatening undertones of Bartók's "night music." In the middle comes a contrasting dance-like episode, complete with bagpipe drones; the A section returns at a higher emotional pitch than before, but subsides back into the night, with an echo of the bagpipes. The third sketch, labeled Danza, whirls through and ultimately unites three separate dance themes assigned to a full-throated orchestra (calmed long enough for an eerie passage of harmonics about halfway through). Overall, the style calls to mind the finale of Bartók's Dance Suite.

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