Hungarian Dance no. 1 in G minor

Brahms published the first ten Hungarian Dances in 1869, in two books for piano duet, having met the melodies during his 1853 tour as accompanist to the violinist Ede Reményi. He orchestrated only three of them himself — numbers 1, 3 and 10 — and conducted the first public performance of those in Leipzig on 5 February 1874. The first dance, in G minor, is among the pieces built on a traditional Hungarian model rather than on his own invention; Brahms was careful throughout to present the set as arrangements, not as original compositions.