Prague Waltz

Like Brahms, his friend and champion in Vienna, Dvorák was an admirer of Johann Strauss. Or so it seems from his Prague Waltz which resembles Strauss’s concert waltzes not only in the triple-time rhythms essential to all pieces of its kind but also in its construction – in this case an unbroken sequence of five dances, each consisting of two tunes, framed by a short introduction and coda. Even so, with a harmonic and melodic style so clearly related to that of Dvorák’s recently completed first set of Slavonic Dances, there is no chance of his Prague Waltz being mistaken for a Viennese waltz