In 1878 Dvorák was commissioned to write something along the lines of Brahms’s “Hungarian Dances”, but using the sounds of his native country. The resulting eight “Slavonic Dances” led to his international breakthrough. “Furiant”, “polka”, “soudeská”: all are written with consummate mastery and dazzling formal sophistication. Although the “Slavonic Dances” also became popular in orchestral arrangement, they were originally written for piano four-hands. Yet the musical text Dvorák released for pu...