Stepping Onto the Floor for Brahms's Hungarian Dance No 5
The Backstory

Packing My Bags With a Violinist

Back in the early 1850s, I went on tour as the piano accompanist for the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi. Working alongside him was like being swept into a whirlwind of fiery tunes that never seemed to sit still for a moment. Whenever we played together, I started writing down the Hungarian-style melodies that caught my ear along the way. I had no grand plan for them at the time, other than keeping these wonderful sounds safe in my coat pocket.

Four Hands and One Crowded Bench

Between 1858 and 1868, I finally sat down and turned ten of those melodies into my first two books of Hungarian Dances. Nobody commissioned me to write them, and I was not trying to impress a grand concert hall. Instead, I arranged them for four hands at a single piano so my circle of friends could play them at home. Sharing a piano bench with a good friend is much better than playing alone, even if you occasionally bump elbows on the fast parts.

The Folk Tune That Had an Owner

When I worked on Hungarian Dance No 5, I honestly thought I was arranging an old anonymous folk tune that belonged to everyone. It turned out that the melody actually came from a csárdás called Bártfai emlék, written by the Hungarian composer and conductor Béla Kéler. Walking off with another living man's tune by mistake is a bit like picking up the wrong umbrella at a restaurant and realizing it has someone else's name stitched inside. Because these dances were mostly adaptations rather than my own melodies, I made sure they were catalogued without an opus number.

A Little Squabble Over Credit

Whether I should have known from the start that living composers wrote some of these tunes was fiercely disputed at the time. Before long, both Ede Reményi and Béla Kéler publicly accused me of plagiarism. It was an awkward fuss, though my publisher N. Simrock and I quickly pointed out that the sheets were printed strictly as arrangements. Among all twenty-one of my Hungarian Dances, only numbers eleven, fourteen, and sixteen are completely my own original inventions.

Putting It to the Test in Oldenburg

Before sending the music to the press, I gave the first ten dances their premiere in November 1868 in Oldenburg. I sat down at the keyboard with my dear friend Clara Schumann to play them for an audience at Haus Beaulieu. Having a pianist of her skill beside me made those wild changes in speed feel completely natural. We had a marvelous time testing out every sudden pause and burst of energy right there on the stage.

Making My Publisher Very Happy

In March 1869, N. Simrock published the first book in Berlin, with Hungarian Dance No 5 serving as the grand finale of the set. At that point in the late 1860s, I was settling into permanent life in Vienna and enjoying my first real breakthrough after the premiere of Ein deutsches Requiem. Even so, I was surprised when these little piano duets became an overnight sensation across Europe. They quickly turned into the most financially lucrative work I ever handed over to my publisher, paying the bills much faster than my serious pieces.

Room for One at the Keyboard

Soon enough, people wanted to play the dances even when they did not have a second pianist handy in the parlor. In 1872, I published my own arrangement of the first two books for a single player at the piano. Fitting four hands' worth of notes under just ten fingers took a bit of careful squeezing, like packing a week's worth of clothes into an overnight bag. Whether played by one person or two, I kept my original version of Hungarian Dance No 5 in the dark, dramatic key of F-sharp minor.

Handing Over the Orchestra Paintbrushes

Many listeners today know Hungarian Dance No 5 as a grand piece for a full orchestra, so they naturally assume I wrote that version too. In truth, I only ever orchestrated three of the dances myself—numbers one, three, and ten—and left the fifth one alone. The famous orchestral versions you hear in concert halls were actually arranged by Albert Parlow and Martin Schmeling. For the orchestral versions, they moved the whole piece from F-sharp minor into G minor.

Built Like a Musical Sandwich

If you look under the hood of Hungarian Dance No 5, the layout is as simple and satisfying as a three-layer sandwich. I wrote it in a brisk two-beat rhythm where the stormy minor-key opening gives way to a bright major-key middle, before the first part comes roaring back. Throughout the score, I sprinkled instructions to stretch the pace and then snap right back into time. The music is meant to breathe and hesitate, rather than ticking along like a strict clock on the mantelpiece.

A Very Close Shave

Long after my lifetime, the orchestral version of Hungarian Dance No 5 found a second career in the cinema. Charlie Chaplin used it in his 1940 film The Great Dictator for a famous scene set inside a barbershop. In one continuous take, he lathers and shaves a customer's face in exact time to every sudden pause and sprint in the music. I never imagined my piano duet would one day guide a razor across a man's chin, though I must admit the timing fits wonderfully.