2 Hungarian Dances

When Brahms started writing his Hungarian Dances in 1858 there were several sources he could turn to for authentic Hungarian Gypsy material. It must have been difficult for him, however, to avoid drawing on his memory of the Hungarian pieces that had made such an impression on him when he played them with a persuasive Hungarian violinist called Eduard Reméni a few years earlier. Certainly, when the first two sets of Hungarian Dances were published in 1869 Reményi accused Brahms of stealing the tunes from him.

As it happens, neither of the two Hungarian Dances in this programme derives from Reményi. No.1 in G minor is based on the Isteni Csárdás by Ferenc Sárközi and, above all in its passionate opening theme on the strings, is a highly attractive example of what Brahms and his contemporaries found so attractive in the Hungarian gypsy idiom. The Hungarian Dance No.6 in D major is based on The Dance of the Rose Bush attributed to a composer called Nittinger. The teasingly slow opening followed by a sudden explosion of energy is only one of the many tempo changes in a dance remarkable for its exuberant harmonies, its reckless rhythms and, with at least five distinct tunes presented in quick succession, its melodic abundance.

No.1 in G minor

No.5 in G minor (orch.Parlow)

Brahms, who was to become one of Johann II’s greatest admirers, was an enthusiast for Hungarian-gypsy music even before he settled in Vienna. Having partnered a Hungarian violinist called Eduard Reményi on concert tours in his early twenties, he was intimately familiar with the idiom and retained his affection for it to the end of his life. His Hungarian Dances for piano duet, drawing on his memories of the music he had played with Reményi but on other sources too, were written between 1858 and 1880, the later ones in Vienna.

The Hungarian Dance No.1 in G minor is based on the Isteni Csárdás by Ferenc Sárközi and, above all in its passionate opening theme on the strings, is a highly attractive example of what Brahms and his contemporaries found so attractive in the Hungarian-gypsy idiom. It is one of the three (the others being No.3 in F and No.10 in E) orchestrated by Brahms himself. The version we are about to hear of No.5 in G minor is by bandmaster Parlow who, having Brahms’s treatment of No.1 in the same key as a model, could scarcely go wrong. Based on Béla Kéler’s Souvenir de Bártfai, it is another display of rhythmic vigour with a particularly stylish episode of syncopations following the explosively energetic first entry of the main theme.