Slovak Dances for four hands piano

Slovak composer, pianist, music journalist, lawyer, and organiser of musical life Dezider Lauko (1872–1942) grew up within the Slovak minority in what is now Hungary. Although he received his musical education at Hungarian institutions, he set himself the goal of creating a distinctly Slovak musical idiom—one that not only drew on folk music through its melodic and harmonic language but also incorporated direct quotations from Slovak folk songs. His best-known work is the cycle Slovak Dances, first published in instalments as individual volumes in Turčiansky Svätý Martin in 1921. Lauko’s concept of the “Slovak dance” combined the ambition to create a Slovak counterpart to Liszt’s Hungarian style, to build on the tradition of Brahms’s piano duets, to stylise Slovak folk songs for the piano, and to weave together “national” songs into a continuous potpourri in the manner of a traditional venček (garland).