Slavonic Dances Opus 46 and Opus 72

The "Slavonic Dances" are a rough imitation of an already successful product. But what an imitation!

Dvorák granted his publisher's request, as he suggested him to write a piece in the spirit of Brahms "Hungarian Dances". Only the publisher asked it to be Bohemian in nature, reflecting Dvorák's origins.

The Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, became an enormous success all over the world. They were melodic, lively and humorous, and thousands of copies of them were sold, both in the piano version, for homes and salons of the rich, and the orchestral version, that filled concert halls everywhere.

The publisher who made a lot of money from the first collection pressured Dvorák to duplicate his success with another piece that would include Slavonic Dances. But the composer felt deceived by the fact that the profits from the first work went first and foremost to the publisher's pocket, and refused. After eight years of relentless persuasion, and a new contract, promising him a much larger share of the profit than what he got for the first part, Dvorák wrote the Slavonic Dances Op. 72, whose success indeed picked up where the first left off.