A decade after Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian Dances (1868), concert audiences were still clamoring for Eastern European drama. Brahms had pointed out budding composer Antonín Dvořák to his publisher, Fritz Simrock, suggesting Dvořák’s fresh talent was something to behold. Dvorak had written his first compilation of Slavonic dances in 1878 for piano duet and was urged to orchestrate his work. Soon Op. 46 swept concertgoers off their feet in concert halls. The publisher printed the dances immediately (both the piano original and the orchestral arrangement), and found Dvořák’s compositions to be quite lucrative. Simrock would go on to represent many of Dvořák’s future works, including his symphonies and tone poems. 

Antonín Dvořák composed his first collection of Slavonic Dances intending  to entertain parlour guests at home gatherings, but his jovial piano score soon wandered into local tavern congregations. Due to its popularity, Dvořák was urged to arrange his Dances for full orchestra. He obliged, and immediately after its orchestration, the Slavonic Dances became a staple in the repertoire as a lively, folk-imbibed dance piece. The Slavonic Dances remain popular orchestral programming today. 

Dvořák utilizes syncopation—long notes on “wrong” beats—quite heavily in Number 8. He masterfully composes his own Czech furiant with all of the traditional asymmetry and heavily accented notes at the core of his original composition. The syncopated dance theme is underscored by a clever hemiola in the brass and percussion. This heavily syncopated opening blurs the ¾ meter that exists, for most of Number 8, only on paper. 

The furiant theme winds down and a bucolic episode begins, led by flutes and oboes. In true Slavic manner, though, this respite is interrupted by another passionate statement of the dance material. Dvořák carves out a languid countermelody in the celli and, after yet another fierce dance episode, a capricious bout of woodwind playing brings the orchestra to its final bombastic statement of Antonín Dvořák’s furiant theme.