Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 23 hours ago
Live recording from March 9th, 2025
Ying Xiao and Stefan Bötel
Hello friends! Here another performance of our concerts this year. This time we are playing the famous Hungarian Dance No.1 by Johannes Brahms.
The Moldau for piano four hands: youtu.be/JRpS-OHvcwQ
The Hungarian Dances (German: Ungarische Tänze) by Johannes Brahms (WoO 1), are a set of 21 lively dance tunes based mostly on Hungarian themes, completed in 1879. They vary from about a minute to five minutes in length. They are among Brahms's most popular works and were the most profitable for him. Each dance has been arranged for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles. Brahms originally wrote the version for piano four hands and later arranged the first ten dances for solo piano.
Brahms' Hungarian Dances should be placed in the context of interest in folk music. Both Haydn and Boccherini refer frequently to gypsy music, but in Brahms' day it was Franz Liszt with his Hungarian rhapsodies who was an inspiration to Brahms, both artistically and financially. In 1850 Brahms met the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi and accompanied him in a number of recitals over the next few years. This was his introduction to "gypsy-style" music such as the csárdás, which was later to prove the foundation of his most lucrative and popular compositions, the two sets of Hungarian Dances (published 1869 and 1880).
Only numbers 11, 14 and 16 are entirely original compositions. The better-known Hungarian Dances include Nos. 1 and 5, the latter of which was based on the csárdás "Bártfai emlék" (Memories of Bártfa) by Hungarian composer Béla Kéler, which Brahms mistakenly thought was a traditional folksong. A footnote on the Ludwig-Masters edition of a modern orchestration of Hungarian Dance No. 1 states: "The material for this dance is believed to have come from the Divine Csárdás (ca. 1850) of Hungarian composer and conductor Miska Borzó."
#Brahms #piano4hands #hungariandance
Live recording from March 9th, 2025
Ying Xiao and Stefan Bötel
Hello friends! Here another performance of our concerts this year. This time we are playing the famous Hungarian Dance No.1 by Johannes Brahms.
The Moldau for piano four hands: youtu.be/JRpS-OHvcwQ
The Hungarian Dances (German: Ungarische Tänze) by Johannes Brahms (WoO 1), are a set of 21 lively dance tunes based mostly on Hungarian themes, completed in 1879. They vary from about a minute to five minutes in length. They are among Brahms's most popular works and were the most profitable for him. Each dance has been arranged for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles. Brahms originally wrote the version for piano four hands and later arranged the first ten dances for solo piano.
Brahms' Hungarian Dances should be placed in the context of interest in folk music. Both Haydn and Boccherini refer frequently to gypsy music, but in Brahms' day it was Franz Liszt with his Hungarian rhapsodies who was an inspiration to Brahms, both artistically and financially. In 1850 Brahms met the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi and accompanied him in a number of recitals over the next few years. This was his introduction to "gypsy-style" music such as the csárdás, which was later to prove the foundation of his most lucrative and popular compositions, the two sets of Hungarian Dances (published 1869 and 1880).
Only numbers 11, 14 and 16 are entirely original compositions. The better-known Hungarian Dances include Nos. 1 and 5, the latter of which was based on the csárdás "Bártfai emlék" (Memories of Bártfa) by Hungarian composer Béla Kéler, which Brahms mistakenly thought was a traditional folksong. A footnote on the Ludwig-Masters edition of a modern orchestration of Hungarian Dance No. 1 states: "The material for this dance is believed to have come from the Divine Csárdás (ca. 1850) of Hungarian composer and conductor Miska Borzó."
#Brahms #piano4hands #hungariandance
