Antonin Dvorak composed his first set of eight Slavonic Dances in 1878. Originally written for piano duet, the dances were inspired by Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, and were orchestrated soon after composition at his publisher’s request. The music is lively and overtly nationalistic, although the tunes themselves are all original and are not taken from any Slavic folk dances. It was indeed this first set of Slavonic Dances that finally launched Dvorak as a composer beyond his native Bohemia. Such were the popularity of the original dances, Dvorak wrote a second set of eight in 1886. Slavonic Dance No.1 is a highly spirited and cheerful furiant in 3/4 time, but is filled with cross-rhythms throughout that suggest duple time - an important feature of the dance