National Pride: Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances

by Maureen Buja  August 3rd, 2026

In 1878 and 1886, Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) created his Slavonic Dances, Opp. 46 and 72. In this series of 16 dances, Dvořák picked up on the idea from Johannes Brahms‘ Hungarian Dances. Dvořák originally wrote this for piano four-hands, and, at the request of his publisher, they were orchestrated shortly thereafter.

Antonín Dvořák, 1892 (Gallica: btv1b8417521d)

Despite the ‘Slavonic’ title, which would imply dances from anywhere in central, southeastern, or eastern Europe (covering Poland, Croatia, Ukraine, Russia, among many other countries), the style of these dances is solidly Czech. In point of fact, Dvořák was really writing using styles and forms from his native Bohemia. As with so much of his work, he’s not quoting real folk music as much as writing in the style of, capturing Bohemian rhythms and folk-dance structures.

The release of the Slavonic Dances was Dvořák’s introduction to the musical world outside his native land. Dvořák had applied for the Austrian State Prize to support his composing work and won it three times: 1874, 1876, and 1877. Brahms, as one of the award committee members, stepped in and was enormously helpful in bringing Dvořák to the attention of his own publisher, Simrock.

Simrock was impressed with Dvořák’s four-hand Slavonic Dances and requested the orchestral version; both sets were successful and became the start of Dvořák’s international reputation. In the end, it led him to the United States and the founding of the short-lived National Conservatory of Music of America in 1892.

The seventh number of the Op. 72 Slavonic Dances was based on the Bohemian dance called the kolo. This is a chain dance for anywhere from 3 to 15 people, with all dance movements happening with the feet while the body moves little. People may hold hands or hold each other around the waist to form the chain. Dancers move to the left and right with side steps and little hops, gradually moving the line to the left. Each of the South Slavic regions will have its own variation on the kolo dance, and experienced dancers can dress up the steps with syncopation or higher hops. It’s a fast dance!

Paul Kletzki, 1965

This was recorded in 1961 by the National Orchestra of the RTF under the direction of Paul Kletzki. Polish conductor Paul Kletzki (1900–1973) spent WWII avoiding the Nazis, leaving Berlin, where he had conducted the Berlin Philharmonic under the guidance of Wilhelm Furtwängler, for Milan, Italy. Eventually, he fled to Russia to escape Italian antisemitism. In 1946, he returned to Milan for La Scala’s reopening and eventually settled in Switzerland, becoming a Swiss citizen in 1949. He was known for his championing of the works of Gustav Mahler after the war. In 1954, he was appointed chief conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 1955, he led the first recordings of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1958 to 1961, he was principal conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and from 1967 to 1970, was the General Music Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. His death in 1973 came while he was conducting a rehearsal of the Liverpool Philharmonic.

Bach’s influence on Jazz

 by Maureen Buja  August 2nd, 2026

Good ‘ol Bach – continuous beat, flowing tunes, and jazz?

Let’s look at his influence not on his contemporaries, not on his students, but on 20th-century composers.

Elias Gottlob Haussmann: Johann Sebastian Bach, 1748 (Leipzig: Bach-Archiv)

Jazz gives us the opportunity to swing a solid beat. And that beat is what Baroque music is known for – what is sometimes called ‘sewing machine’ music – you start it and off it goes until it unwinds at the end. For jazz artists, Baroque music can be a springboard for improvisation (which was also important in Bach’s era, especially for organists) and for bending that rhythmic line.

Henry Brant took the idea of a Baroque toccata (a virtuoso work for keyboard or plucked string instrument) and swings it more than a little bit. One of the earliest of the Bach-meets-Jazz pieces, dating from the 1940s, the Jazz Toccata on a Bach Theme mixes a bit of Bach with a bit of Art Tatum piano style.  

On the classical side of things, French pianist and composer Jacques Loussier (1934–2019) fell in love with Bach as a child. Starting with the Notebook for Anna Magdalena at age 11, he used it as a place to add his ‘own notes, expanding the harmonies, and playing around with that music’. When he started his fusion of jazz and Bach at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1950s, it was unique for its time. According to the story, at a competition at the conservatory, Loussier played a prelude by Bach, and when his memory failed, he improvised. He later said that he only followed a tradition, because musicians of the 18th century—including Bach—were great improvisers. It probably didn’t hurt that he was earning money on the side playing jazz in Paris bars at the time. Loussier, along with string bass player Pierre Michelot (who had played with Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France) and percussionist Christian Garros, formed the Jacques Loussier Trio and took Bach on the road, using his music as a basis for their jazz improvisations.

Jacques Loussier Trio

Bach’s Trio Sonatas for Organ, BWV 525–530, are considered formidable organ works, written as training pieces for Bach’s oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. In the hands of the Trio Michael Spors, Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 2, BWV 526, is taken apart, put back together, improvised on, and generally changed while still being Bach.

Trio Michael Spors

German keyboard player and composer David Timm (b. 1969) formed the JazzDuo Timm/Brockelt with saxophonist Reiko Brockelt in 1991. On their 2004 album Visions, they applied a number of different styles to Bach, including swing and samba adaptations to create a new jazz Bach world.

Their swing adaptation of the monumental Toccata and Fugue in D minor takes Bach to a loose and danceable 1940s feel. It’s an amazing amalgam of two distinct styles, emphasised by the different voices of the organ and saxophone.

JazzDuo Timm/Brockelt

Dutch pianist and composer Lucie de Saint Vincent founded the Collectif Trytone to ‘break down the barriers between styles and traditions’. Their first album, Bach to Bach, was used by de Saint Vincent as a way of posing ‘questions about our humanity, the space between heaven and earth, and the relationship between our concrete existence and the realm of spirituality’. She draws on the idea of improvisation and how it contrasts with the modern idea of the set text. We can’t return to Bach’s sonic world, so why not bring him into ours?

The Collectif Trytone is directed by Lucie de Saint Vincent, with soprano Lucie Chartin, saxophonist Joao Driessen, bassist Mihail Ivanov, and Joan Terol Amigo on drums. Their musical synthesis brings together Baroque, Classical and jazz ideas.

Collectif Trytone

In their 2019 album Bach Today, flautist Stefan Keller and percussionist Beda Ehrensperger ‘play Bach and beyond’, as the cover says. The Bach of the title isn’t just J.S. Bach, but also his son C.P.E. Bach, and the two players create a new world of the ‘Baroque Classical’.

In 1959, a new wave of music came up from Brazil and changed jazz forever. This New Wave, or Bossa Nova sound, credited to Antônio Carlos Jobim (music) and Vinicius de Moraes (words), was based on samba, but without dance steps. It has syncopation but doesn’t swing like American jazz; it is most notable for each voice playing a different rhythm.

On his 1990 album WorldBeat Bach, clarinettist Richard Stoltzman took Bach and placed him in many different international musical styles, including samba, bossa nova, tango, West African, flamenco, calypso, bolero, and gospel. Although the melody is presented in a fairly straightforward manner, it’s always susceptible to that infectious beat below it.

Richard Stoltzman (photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco)

Composer Jeremy Wall takes a familiar work by Bach, Jesu, meine Freude, and gives it a slow tango feel.

American vocalist and jazz man Ward Swingle created his vocal group the Swingle Singers in France in 1962, first as session singers backing pop stars such as Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf, and then they discovered Bach. As a sight-reading exercise, they vocalised Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and discovered Bach’s swing possibilities. Their first album Jazz Sébastien Bach started as a private gift for friends and ended up being awarded the 1964 Grammy for Best Performance by a Chorus and Best New Artist. This was followed 5 years later by Jazz Sébastien Bach Vol. 2. This first group was disbanded when Swingle moved from France to England, and reformed again when Swingle moved to the US in 1984. The group is still active and, with its distinctive sound, has featured in many films and TV shows.

Swingle Singers

Jazz pianist and composer Brad Mehldau (b. 1970) studied jazz and contemporary music in New York at The New School and was a member of saxophonist Joshua Redman’s quartet in the mid-1990s. Following commissions to write music inspired by Bach, he started touring with these in 2015.

In his piece After Bach, Mehldau plays with Bach’s metre: 3/8 time is turned into the infinitely more complex 20/16, and other time signatures. Odd-metre Bach, playing with the established rondo form, and shifts of tonality take Bach firmly into the 21st century.

Brad Mehldau, 2021 (photo by Harald Krichel)

We’ll return to the Swingle Singers for our last bit of Bach. From their 2007 recording Beauty and the Beat Box, the Swingle Singers were joined by beatboxer Shlomo and the beatboxing choir, Vocal Orchestra. This truly takes Bach to the 21st century.

Bach hides in many places and he’s not only confined to classical music. Jazz, pop, rock and every other genre can see a bit of Bach everywhere. Where’s your favourite Bach?

Music Confronts Humanity and Poses Some Questions

 by Maureen Buja  July 22nd, 2026

Italian composer Maurizio Guernieri (b. 1962) wanted to explore the world of wind instruments, which he felt, as a string musician, was an unfamiliar corner of the musical world. His 2019 work Musicografie (Images in Music) starts each movement with a quotation that the movement will explore. The texts were created by the composer and pose questions or situations that can be pondered musically.

Maurizio Guernieri

In the Praeludium, the story comes from an Aesop’s fable in which the sun and the wind compete to see which is stronger, choosing a traveller on the road to show their power. The wind blows and makes the poor traveller clutch his coat all the closer to keep warm; the sun shines and makes him take his coat off to luxuriate in the heat. Despite his bluster, the wind is defeated by the sun….

Praeludium
Il vento, con il suo alito possente, voleva dimostrare di essere il più forte…	The wind, with its powerful breath, wanted to prove that it was the strongest…

Arthur Rackham: The North Wind and the Sun

Each instrument seems to push its particular sound. The traveller is alone, and around him whirls a multiplex of sound and silences.

The student asks his teacher a question, and the answer is larger than either the student or the question. Even in the midst of a crowd, we are always alone.

Solitude
«Ma gli uomini dove si trovano?» chiese curioso l’allievo. «Io non vedo nessuno. Qui nel deserto è pieno di solitudine…» «Siamo sempre soli. Anche in mezzo agli uomini» rispose il Maestro.	“But where are the men?” asked the student curiously. “I don’t see anyone. Here in the desert it’s full of solitude…” “We are always alone. Even among men,” replied the Master.

Each instrument plays alone, with little reference to the other ensemble members. The piano thunders in its low register, the flute quivers, and the strings (viola and violoncello) play harmonics and add their own quiver to the flute sound.

A mix of weather and music! Notes fall like rain, forming drops and then rivers until, at the end, even pianos fall from the heights.

Ostinati
Le nuvole si aprono e delicatamente cadono gocce di note. Si forma un crescendo e cadono fiumi di intere scale di note. Poi tutta la musica precipita e piovono pianoforti da altezze incommensurabili…	The clouds part, and delicate drops of notes fall. A crescendo forms, and rivers of entire scales of notes fall. Then all the music falls, and pianos rain down from immeasurable heights…

In Pavane, we have our first steps of the dance of life, coming from the sea. In the end, the sea will engulf the world, and we will all dance together.

Pavane
Il mare è l’immensa culla della vita di tutta la natura: si può dire che da lui ogni cosa abbia mosso i primi passi e forse, probabilmente, verso di lui ogni cosa si incamminerà incontro alla fine di tutto.	The sea is the immense cradle of life for all of nature: it can be said that everything took its first steps from it, and perhaps, probably, everything will move towards it towards the end of everything.

A pavane at the court of Henry III of France, ca 1581 (Louvre Museum)

In European music, the Pavane was a slow processional dance, designed to show off the magnificent clothes worn at court.

Under the title of Caccia (Hunt), Nature looks at humans and finds them…wanting. What would we do if Nature gave up on us?

Caccia
La senti la Foresta? É strana: silenziosa e viva allo stesso tempo. Consapevole e attenta a ciò che le succede intorno. Direi quasi che capisce molto di più di quanto capiscano gli uomini. E la Foresta li osserva, li scruta, li giudica e sentenzia: «Adesso basta! Se lo procurino loro, l’ossigeno».	Can you hear the Forest? It’s strange: silent and alive at the same time. Aware and attentive to what’s happening around it. I’d almost say it understands much more than humans do. And the Forest observes them, scrutinises them, judges them, and pronounces: “Enough! Let them get their own oxygen.”

In a fall of notes, the Forest world comes alive. Complex questions are asked and thought about. The piano speaks for the ground, and the other instruments inhabit the upper branches and speak for those who live there.

In the final movement, we return to the greatest of human creations: the city. Gathered together in towers, the people in the city seem to reach more and more desirously toward the sky, but what is there to reach?

Postludium
La città verticale corre verso il cielo. «Tutto si muove, tutto corre, tutto volge rapido e distratto. Verso dove?»	The vertical city races toward the sky. “Everything moves, everything rushes, everything turns quickly and distractedly. Towards where?”

Quick and distracted, the ensemble seems to pursue many different paths towards where?

It’s an interesting idea to pose questions for music to answer. More than just a single reflection on the movement titles, the musical content poses questions for us as well.

In the Praeludium, it isn’t strength that wins the competition, it’s a quiet inner glow.

The Solitude of the individual takes a long time to be understood. At first, the student sees everyone as more alike than different. It’s his teacher who tells him to look beneath the surface and to recognise that the differences between people make each of them alone.

Ostinati, in the plural, makes us rethink the musical idea of an ostinato. Traditionally, it’s a recurring rhythm below the melody, but what if every voice contributes to that idea?

In the Pavane of the sea, the first steps are just as tentative as the final steps. Change doesn’t bring improvement, and slow isn’t always better.

Caccia has an intriguing title: who is involved in the hunt? The Forest can’t move to capture anything, and humans are infamous for pursuing their targets too far. Does the Forest have to help? Not necessarily.

The Postludium questions man’s achievement. What’s the point of creating more and more, higher and higher, if we don’t know what we’re seeking?

Focusing on the Unusual: Vivaldi’s Concertos for Viola d’amore

 by Maureen Buja  April 27th, 2026

The viola d’amore was not your average viola – instead of the regular 6 strings, it had an additional 6 strings that were not bowed, but which vibrated when the main strings were played. These sympathetic strings, as they were called, added to the depth of sound of the instrument. They made a ‘silvery’ sound and have a clear tone. Leopold Mozart described the viola d’amore as ‘a special kind of violin that sounds especially beautiful in the stillness of the night’.

Viola d’amore with 14 strings made by Johannes Florenus Guidantus, 18th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art)    One of Vivaldi’s star pupils at the Ospedale della Pietà was a violinist named Anna Maria. One visitor to the Pietà described her as ‘the finest violinist in Europe’, and Vivaldi wrote many of his violin concertos for her. We believe that at least two of the 8 viola d’amore concertos were written for her because of Vivaldi hiding her initials in the titles: Concerto per viola d’AMore.

By having 6 strings instead of the usual 5 on a regular violin, the viola d’amore was capable of playing some chords and using some barre effects (where you play two strings in quick alternation, with one of them sounding the melody) that were not possible on the violin. Vivaldi, of course, incorporated these effects into his works.

Concertos on unusual instruments were popular in Vivaldi’s world, and he fulfilled that desire with many different kinds of instruments. Being a specialist on the viola d’amore (he was known to play it himself) meant more money to be earned teaching this unique instrument.

Violas d’amore (top row, 2nd from right, and bottom left) and a viola di bordone (baryton) (bottom right) (Deutsches Museum)

This recording was made in 1950 with Renzo Sabatini as the viola d’amore soloist, playing with Anthony Bernard leading The London Chamber Orchestra.

Renzo Sabatini

Sabatini (1905–1973) studied violin and viola at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome and toured widely as both a violinist and a viola d’amorist, recording two of Vivaldi’s concertos for Decca. After his concert touring stopped, he became an editor of Baroque Italian music, bringing out works by Ariosti, Asioli, Boccherini, Geminiani, Locatelli, Lorenziti, Pergolesi, Salieri, Tartini, and Vivaldi, as well as writing his own work. He played a Gasparo da Salò viola and a Capicchioni viola d’amore.

Performed by
Renzo Sabatini
Anthony Bernard
The London Chamber Orchestra

Recorded in 1950

Official Website

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Kara Karayev and His Seven Beauties

 by Maureen Buja  July 23rd, 2026

Azerbaijani composer Kara Karayev (also Gara Garayev) (1918–1982) began his musical education in his home city of Baku and, at age 20, was accepted into the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied composition. He returned to Baku after graduation and began what would be a long and illustrious career as a composer, pedagogue, and critic.

Kara Karayev (Gara Garayev)

At the Moscow Conservatory, he was the top student in the class studying with Dmitri Shostakovich, and much of Shostakovich’s influence is evident in Karayev’s musical style, particularly in instrumentation and harmonic language. He wrote across an enormous range of genres: music for plays and musicals, opera, ballet, symphonic and chamber works, romances, cantatas, children’s music, and film music. He saw himself as a native speaker of Azerbaijani music, and that music of both the east and the west came together in him.

In 1949, Karayev wrote the symphonic suite The Seven Beauties, based on the 12th-century poem by Nizami. In Nizami’s epic poem, completed in 1197, the young warrior Bahram Gur, destined to become ruler of the world, enters a mysterious, locked room to discover the portraits of seven beautiful princesses, each from a different land. When he wins a kingdom and achieves great wealth and power, he remembers the maidens and summons each of them, commissioning the architect Shideh to build seven domed structures – one for each bride. Seven brides and seven days of the week, and each beauty in a separate pavilion in a signature colour, to be visited on ‘her’ day of the week. Each beauty tells the king a story with a moral lesson. Starting the week in the White pavilion, he ends at the black pavilion. Nizami’s mystical poetry illustrates the supremacy of divine love over earthly pleasures.

The poetry of Nizami and the story of Bahram Gur have been illustrated for centuries, and below you will see selections from an early 16th-century manuscript from Herat, in present-day Afghanistan.

In 1953, Karayev converted his symphonic suite into a ballet, the first full-length Azerbaijani ballet, The Seven Beauties. The Seven Beauties Ballet Suite was created from the ballet.

Before any of the beauties are revealed, the ballet opens with a Waltz and Adagio, but not a waltz in the Viennese sense, since the use of percussion and the tonal modulations definitely takes us to the exotic east.

Bahram Gur, 2014 (San Diego Ballet)

The whirling Waltz is calmed in a moderate Adagio.

A comedic Dance of the Clowns follows, giving us the equivalent of a scherzo movement.

Now our hero, Bahram Gur, finds the ruined palace where the portraits of the 7 beauties adorn the walls, which forms an Introduction to the seven beauties.

Each princess is from a different region, starting with the beauty from India. The music is given to a solo flute, with a percussion accompaniment.

Bahram Gur in the White Palace on Friday, Folio 235 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, 1524–1525 (Metropolitan Museum, 13.228.7.14)

The Byzantine beauty is personified by a fast, fiery dance at her entrance and a more subdued exit.

Bahram Gur in the Dark Palace on Saturday, Folio 207 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, 1524–1525 (Metropolitan Museum, 13.228.7.8)

Bahram Gur and the Dark Princess, 2014 (San Diego Ballet)

The Khorezmian beauty from the Khwarazmian Empire, now part of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran, is also energetic.

Bahram Gur in the Yellow Palace on Sunday, Folio 213 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, 1524–1525 (Metropolitan Museum, 13.228.7.9)

Bahram Gur and the Yellow Princess, 2014 (San Diego Ballet)

The Slavonic beauty’s music invokes Russian folksong as its basis.

Bahram Gur in the Green Palace on Monday, Folio 224 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, 1524–1525 (Metropolitan Museum, 13.228.7.12)

The Maghrebian beauty brings us a bolero song style with castanets and Spanish harmonies.

Bahram Gur in the Red Palace on Tuesday, Folio 220 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, 1524–1525 (Metropolitan Museum, 13.228.7.11)

The Chinese beauty brings back the flutes, now in a lively dance.

Bahram Gur in the Turquoise Palace on Wednesday, Folio 216 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, 1524–1525 (Metropolitan Museum, 13.228.7.10)

Bahram Gur and the Turquoise Princess, 2014 (San Diego Ballet)

The final portrait, called by Karayev The Beauty of Beauties, uses harps and clarinets and places a unique melody in the oboe. The ostinato accompaniment gives the music an almost hypnotic feel. At the same time, there’s a triumphal feel, as though all the beauties in the world have come together as a brightly shining light.

Bahram Gur in the Sandal Palace on Thursday, Folio 230 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja, 1524–1525 (Metropolitan Museum, 13.228.7.13)

The ballet closes with The Procession, in a march that opens in the woodwinds and continues using harmonies and rhythms in the style of Prokofiev.

Bahram Gur and his 7 beauties, 2014 (San Diego Ballet)

Throughout the work, Karayev’s research into music of the Arab-influenced world and his ventures into Albanian, Vietnamese, Turkish, Bulgarian, and African musics all have a place to show in the international beauty brought together by Bahram Gur. As a ballet, it allows the choreographer to use musical styles from across the region for each princess, each reinforced by their individual colours.