The two series of »Slavonic Dances« (op.46 and 72), each of them consisting of eight numbers, belong to the most famous works of Antonín Dvorák. The eight dances with "opus 46" were first composed for the piano duet. But an orchestration was demanded by the symphonic structure, their rhythm and rich expressiveness.
Dvorák did not use as his starting point the music of original folkdance songs but only made use of their rhythms - he chose for this purpose characteristic types of Czech dances like Sousedská (triple-time dance), Polka, Jump Dance and Furiant - and was creating his dances from a musical material, which was his own and new.