And so, although Roussel usually eschewed programmatic or picture-painting music — his magnificent ballets aside — a work honoring Belgium is entirely appropriate. Especially appropriate because it was his last orchestral work; a fond and fitting musical farewell, written in a style that is more "personal" than his symphonies.

Rapsodie flamande uses five tunes from Flemish songs of the 16th and 17th centuries, taken from Ernest Closson's collection, Popular Songs of the Belgian Provinces; but there is little of those early centuries and much of the 20th in Roussel's rendition. It opens with dark, ominous, and surprisingly thick chords, which leads to the first song (The Siege of Berg-op-Zoom). Roussel transitions to the begger's song (Trommelen van Dierendondijn) by accelerating for the first of several times; a device which gives the music forward impetus yet also, it must be admitted, emphasizes that the Rapsodie is five rather unrelated sections strung together.

And then suddenly the gloom is gone; the trumpets introduce a merry dance tune that is then picked up by the winds. This leads eventually to a pounding section of great vigor and humor, in which the strings are accompanied by a variety of percussion instruments, most notably the timpani. After lyrical sections featuring extended solos by oboe, violin, winds and strings, the Rapsodie comes to a typically Rousselian conclusion; not joyous, perhaps, but confident and optimistic.

In the Rapsodie Flamande, by turns truculent and merry, martial and lyrical, Roussel conveys the spirit of Flanders as successfully as Ravel evokes that of France's southern neighbour in the Rapsodie Espagnole. [Basil Deane]

Certain of Roussel's works have an exuberance, a joie de vivre, a petulance that produces a comic effect; without doubt the best example is the Rapsodie Flamande (1936). In this work, Roussel produces humor by juxtaposing unexpected opposites. [Pierre Lardaret]

One can see in this work, treated so cheerfully in a popular-heroic manner, the composer's tribute to his northern ancestors who were so much like him — in particular, in the Rapsodie's jovial humor. [Marc Pincherle]

Rapsodie Flamande is nothing of the kind of a folk-lore melody. All five themes are allocated and dislocated according to Albert Roussel's favourite moods: lyricism, violence, and wit. [Gérard Gefen]

It was in the 'twenties that signs of Roussel's Northern ancestry — he was born at Tourcoing and liked to speak of himself as a Fleming — became noticeable in his music. It was only at the very end of his life, in 1936, that he actually wrote a 'Rapsodie flamande', but his chief orchestral works of these later years — the Suite in F and the Third and Fourth Symphonies — all show a new toughness of texture, a hard-headed and hard-hitting approach to the material of music with more than a hint of the robust, rollicking humour of the great Flemish genre painters. [Martin Cooper]