10 Hungarian Dances (1858–68)

The consensus of opinion is that the 10 Hungarian Dances for solo piano are arrangements of the Hungarian Dances for piano duet published in two sets of five each 1869. That might be true of some of them and, certainly, the material is basically the same in the two versions. But the historical fact is that, even though the solo Hungarian Dances were not published until 1871, both Brahms himself and Clara Schumann played at least some of them in the 1850s and 1860s. The internal evidence points in the same direction. It is unlikely, for example, that having worked out a logical key scheme for the ten duets, Brahms would then transpose some of them in such a way as to make a less satisfactory sequence of solo pieces, including two consecutive dances (Nos.4 and 5 in F sharp minor) in the same key.

Brahms and Clara Schumann first played the Hungarian Dances as piano duets in Oldenburg in 1868, before they were published but probably even then with the declaration that they were arrangements rather than original works. In spite of that disclaimer, however, Brahms was accused at an early stage of plagiarism by those, not least his one-time Hungarian violinist collaborator Ede Reményi, who felt that he did not have exclusive rights to the proceeds of the immense popularity of the dances. The problem was that Brahms thought the tunes he had selected were examples of Hungarian folk music whereas, in fact, they were all published works by other composers. No.1 in G minor for example, always a special favourite and one of the three Brahms himself orchestrated, derives from Sárközi’s Divine Csárdás – the stylish dotted rhythms of which Bartók condemned as “anti-Hungarian.” Similarly un-Hungarian, from Bartók’s point of view, is the much repeated cadence figure in No.2 in D minor (from Windt’s Emma Csárdás), familiar, even diagnostic, feature of Hungarian gypsy music though it is.

Brahms wasn’t the only one to make such mistakes of course. The energetically syncopated D major Vivace which occupies the middle section of the otherwise gracious No.3 in F (from Reményi and Rizner’s wedding dances Tolnai Lakadalmas) appears also in Liszt’s Eighth Hungarian Rhapsody. Since he did it himself Bartók would not have objected, however, to Brahms’s simulation of the cimbalom in the tremolandos accompanying the melancholy opening theme of No.4 in F sharp minor (from Merty’s Souvenir de Kalocsay). There are more stylish but anti-Hungarian dotted rhythms in No.5 in F sharp minor (from Kéler’s Souvenir de Bártfai) which is particularly attractive for the teasing tempo changes in the Vivace middle section. While No.6 in D flat (from Nittinger’s Danse du Rosier) and the comparatively short No.7 in F (from Rémenyi again) take similar advantage of the characteristic Hungarian-gypsy freedom with tempo, No.8 in A minor (from Szadaby-Frank’s Louisa Csárdás) retains its dashing Presto tempo throughout. No.9 in E minor (from Travniks’ Makoc csárdás) offers a charmingly graceful poco sostenuto episode to offset the vigorous opening Allegro. No.10 in E major (another wedding dance from Tolnai Lakadalmas) is constructed in much the same way but scored with heavier offbeat foot-stamping in the left hand and, as befits the last in the series, more pianistic weight in general.

Although Brahms made something far more thrilling of these tunes in his piano versions and his three orchestral arrangements than they are in their original state, he does seem to have been embarrassed by the accusations of plagiarism. Certainly, when his publisher prevailed upon him to follow up on their success with a second group of Hungarian Dances for piano duet in 1880 he was careful to avoid published sources and to create at least a few of his own in the same exotic style.