Hungarian Dances

Brahms contributed greatly to the world’s appreciation for native Hungarian musical style. That style had appeared elsewhere in classical art music—in Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert, to name just three. But apart from Liszt’s virtuosic Rhapsodies, nowhere else has Hungarian music taken so prominent and comprehensive a role as in Brahms’ twenty-one Hungarian Dances. They were published in four volumes between 1869 and 1880. Brahms originally wrote them for piano four-hand and later arranged some for piano solo and others for orchestra. However, their original scoring meant that, excepting the most difficult passages, these dances could be disseminated throughout middle-class homes in a way that Liszt’s Rhapsodies could not. Moreover, the repetitive ABA form and relatively small scale make the Hungarian Dances ideal domestic music. A better parallel might be Dvořák’s sixteen Slavonic Dances, which similarly include fetching melodies, dashing rhythmic energy, and the subtle rubato and chromaticism typical of improvised folk performance.

(c) Jason Stell