Slavonic Dances, Op.46

No.4 in F major: tempo di minuetto

No.5 in A major: allegro vivace - più vivace

No.6 in D major: allegretto scherzando

No.7 in C minor: allegro assai

No.8 in G minor: presto

The most important commission Dvorak ever received - the turning point in his career - came to him by way of none other than Johannes Brahms. Impressed by Dvorak’s Moravian Duets, Brahms sent them with a warm recommendation to his own publisher in Berlin. Simrock duly published them end enjoyed such commercial success with them that he wrote to Dvorak and asked him for a set of Slavonic Dances on the same lines as Brahms’s enormously popular Hungarian Dances for piano duet. The first series of eight Slavonic Dances, Op.46, was completed in 1878 for a fee of 300 marks and - having established the composer’s international reputation and having made the publisher’s fortune - it was followed by a second series, Op.72, eight years later for a fee of 3,000 marks.

Although they were to some extent modelled on Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances differ from them in two important ways. One is that, although they were published first as piano duets, the Slavonic Dances are no less orchestral than keyboard in conception, the two versions having been written at the same time. The other is that, whereas Brahms used real Hungarian gypsy tunes, Dvorak wrote his melodies in the authentic Slavonic style and rhythms.

The inspiration of all but one of the eight pieces of Op.46 derives from one kind or another of Czech folk dance. The first and last, for example, derive from the furiant -a vigorous dance, as the name suggests, characterised by the angry conflict of duple rhythms in triple-time metres. The exception is the second piece, which is based on the Ukranian dumka - the leisurely E minor material of the opening section alternating with quicker passages based either, like the first episode in D major, on variants of the main theme or, like the second episode in C major, on a new tune.

For the most part, the Slavonic Dances are ternary construction with clearly contrasting middle sections. The A major middle section of the opening furiant has scarcely any trace of the conflicting duple and triple rhythms of the C major outer section. In the middle section of the third dance in A flat major, two trumpet in thirds introduce a syncopated E major melody quite different from both the gentle and the energetic manifestations of the polka on either side of it. The fourth dance - a sousedska, in spite of the Tempo di minuetto heading - has a rather different shape in that the middle is long delayed by the apparently development of what seems, on first hearing, a not very promising four-bar theme.

Of course, it is characteristic of folk-dance tunes that they are symmetrically constructed out of two-bar or four-bar phrases. Far from attempting anything more sophisticated, Dvorak not only confines his Slavonic melodies to the same kind of symmetry but also constructs each section of each dance in multiples of four bars - usually eight or sixteen. The one exception is the delayed middle section of the fifth dance (a skocna or reel), which is based on a five-bar theme, introduced high on flute and oboe, and constructed in ten-bar sections.

The sixth dance, another sousedska in ternary form conforms to every kind of symmetry in both the long and the short term, finding its variety in the most ingenious and colourful orchestration. The seventh dance, a skocna in C minor, is even more daring in that it is based on one theme only - a theme, moreover, of the utmost simplicity, constructed in two-bar phrases each one of which is repeated. The compensation here - an extraordinary example of counterpoint in a work illuminated by several delightful aspects of the art - is the rough canonic treatment which the theme attracts on its every appearance.

To complete the symmetry, the last dance reflects the first in every important way, including a later recall of the middle section and a final explosion of furious energy.