220 Slavonic Dances
Dvořák

Up 9. 2nd of 5 entries for Dvořák. Highest position since 2007.

In the late nineteenth century, piano-duet sheet music was the iTunes download of its day. In almost every parlour in Europe, they were the party pieces of choice, so much so that publishers would outbid each other for the piano duets of the great composers.

Dvořák's publisher, Simrock, had even threatened to call off publishing his Symphony No. 7 if the composer didn't stump up the piano-duet version ahead of the orchestral score. Simrock must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when Dvořák supplied him with eight Slavonic Dances in this format: perfect, folk-like tunes (although all original Dvořák compositions) in a beautifully saleable form.

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'The Wedding Dance in the Open Air' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1566).