I wrote myself a note a week or two before this song came up in the practice queue. It read, "It's not hard; it's only pretending to be hard." This proved to be so right, and not because I have any especial acumen or ability regarding playing, but because (again) John Thompson did such a good job collecting and ordering these pieces. Each one really does gradually increase in difficulty, bringing you to a level that places the succeeding ones within reach. The song required work, naturally, but of the type that could be accomplished in a week—at least at a basic level. (Polishing will take much longer, months at least.)
The opening (pictured above) is filled with repetitions and acciaccaturas. It is to be played lento a capriccio, which I crudely translate as slowly and whimsically. The chords are pedalled, even though they are executed in staccato; this was strange and new to me. I'm still not sure if I can actually hear the staccato or if I should be able to. I haven't quite worked out the details of pedalling yet.
Left is the trail of the opening. By this point, the phrase has already been foreshadowed at least twice by the many grace notes and trill-esque bits that opened the song. Now it peters out (pìu ritenuto) and leads into the first theme. Note the triplets. Their value, it seems, matters only for accounting purposes. Pìu ritenuto, which is a fusion of ritardando (gradually slowing) and diminuendo (gradually softening), grants the player some of freedom in determining how to execute, so the triplets don't actually have to be played that way at all. I've never heard anyone adhere to them in any version I've listened to... Hmm... I think I might try it! The notes pictured right pick up after the flourish of the opening. They introduce the song's first melodic theme (Lassan) and require a fast switching of second and third fingers before striking C in both hands. I've improved the execution quite a bit since first trying it. I used to have to hesitate a lot to prepare myself for playing it. Now I hesitate for a much shorter period and may even get it on the first try!
Above are two similar passages for comparison. While their patterns are pretty much the same, the two groups of four semiquavers on the left are detached, while their counterparts on the right are attached. I'm not sure why that difference exists. Another difference is in the pedal use. I was acutely aware of the need to pedal all the way through the second after having pedalled only halfway through the first. Now I'm wondering if the two phenomena are related: that is, whether the beam connecting the two groups exists to reinforce the connection created by the pedal. Although the difference in the pedal marks doesn't cause any real execution problems, such details are important (and potentially problematic) for reasons concerning memorization. Consequently, I'm also acutely aware of another passage (not pictured) similar to both, but that has no pedalling indicated at all. I wonder what makes for these differences, and what makes the one on the right so special that its notes get that extra propulsion toward blending.
This interesting scalish passage is pretty much all grace notes. Recall that the song is in 2/4 time, so even though 14 notes are attached to those double beams, they fail to spend any of the measure's allotted beats. Pretty cool, huh? I worried about being able to play them fast enough, especially since I sort of thought they ought to hurry up, being grace notes and all. (I'd seen these in books sometimes, wondered why they were so small, and marveled when I realized they were just a crowd (cloud) of the same types of grace notes I'd regularly seen before as appoggiaturas and such. On those occasions, those notes had always been played pretty fast—as at the end of Chopin's Nocturne in E-Flat in which they descend like a waterfall.) But I soon came to realize that I should give them the time they request, as time sort of stands still for them here. And the execution's coming along okay. The hardest part is getting to those four B-flats fast enough to keep the timing steady with the preceding notes. They require a switching of hands, but even that part is working out okay, now that I've had a few days of practice. (Still needs a lot more work, of course.) 
This section (left) is titled "Friska" and it feels a lot like a gambol. Check out that wide acciaccatura! It is crushed into a note four doors down. Luckily I'd had some practice with those octave-width ones in The Skaters, so I wasn't alarmed. (Actually, there's an octave-width one earlier in this song, too, but it's not pictured. It's in the Lassan section and goes from C to C. So I'm an old pro...) This section has the right hand jumping from first to fourth/fifth, then travelling up to the end of the octave and back down, pausing again in the middle. The cycle restarts every two measures, and while the right hand does these back-and-forth sweeps, the left hand supports with a lot of chord-repeating and -sustaining. (I'm pretty much just revealing my mnemonic devices. Naturally, my mistakes occur at every point at which this description fails.) Finally, there's the key change! C minor to F major (pictured right). 
After the key change comes this Vivace section that restores the tempo and makes my fingers feel like a rubber band when playing. I've almost heard myself chanting "elas-tic band, elas-tic band..." along with the rhythm. (I frequently make up nonsense words that sound like the music as an interior accompaniment. It's weird...) The phrase repeats a bit higher with the first and third fingers doing the rubbery flicking section ("elas-") that was initially performed by the third and fourth in the section actually pictured. After this comes a bit that's even more staccato-ey, but retains a bit of the lilt, so that it forms an appropriate bridge between the previous section and the one pictured in the next paragraph. Now it is quite riddled with staccato, as you shall see. 
Top right is the second of two similar 100% staccato sections. The first iteration (not shown) was like this one, but lacked the left-hand accompaniment. Instead, the left hand took care of the second and fourth group of quavers. Finally, this long staccato run, which began all the way back at Tempo giusto - Vivace, comes to an end with the array of chords pictured bottom right. So many! They actually truncate the progress of the true Hungarian Rhapsodie No. 2, though, and I remember finding this wrap-up a little abrupt when I first heard this adapted version. But I understand why J.T. ended it so: the rest of the song is just too fast and/or technically demanding for a third grade student, even if she's well on her way to fourth grade! So Liszt, au revoir: another time, another place. We'll definitely meet again, and I look forward to it :)
Alan Chan's rendition
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